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FRENZIED     FICTION 


BY  STEPHEN  LEACOCK 

FURTHER  FOOLISHNESS 

BEHIND  THE  BEYOND 

NONSENSE    NOVELS 

LITERARY  LAPSES 

SUNSHINE   SKETCHES 

ARCADIAN  ADVENTURES 
WITH  THE  IDLE  RICH 

ESSAYS  AND  LITERARY 
STUDIES 

MOONBEAMS  FROM  THE 
LARGER  LUNACY 


FRENZIED 
.'.  FICTION.-. 

BY   STEPHEN    LEACOCK 

AUTHOR      OF      "further      FOOLISHNESS," 

"nonsense   novels,"   "literary   lapses,"   etc. 


NEW  YORK:  JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 
LONDON:  JOHN  LANE,  THE  BODLEY  HEAD 
TORONTO:   S.  B.  GUNDY  :  MCMXVIII 


n 


,      Copyright,  I9i7»* 
Bit  JoecnXan?^  Company 


Printed  by 

Prospect  Press 

New  York,  U.  S.  A. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  My  Revelations  as  a  Spy  ....  9 

II  Father  Knickerbocker — A  Fantasy  .  26 

III  The  Prophet  in  Our  Midst      ...  47 

IV  Personal  Adventures  in  the  Spirit 

World 57 

V  The  Sorrows  of  a  Summer  Guest     .  76 

VI  To  Nature  and  Back  Again    ...  96 

VII  The  Cave  Man  As  He  Is    .     .     .     .  113 
VIII  Ideal  Interviews: 

1.  With  a  European  Prince       .     •     .  128 

2.  With  Our  Greatest  Actor      .     .     .  137 

3.  With  Our  Greatest  Scientist       .      .  146 

4.  With  Our  Typical  Novelists       .      .  158 
IX  The  New  Education 170 

X  The  Errors  of  Santa  Claus    .     .     .  182 

XI  Lost  in  New  York 190 

XII  This  Strenuous  Age 199 

XIII  The  Old,  Old  Story  of  How  Five  Men 

Went  Fishing 206 

XIV  Back  from  the  Land 221 

XV  The  Perplexity  Column      .     .     .     .  238 

XVI  Simple  Stories  of  Success  or  How  to 

Succeed  in  Life 243 

XVII  In  Dry  Toronto 256 

XVIII  Merry  Christmas 276 

9432110 


FRENZIED     FICTION 


I— My  Revelations  as  a  Spy 

IN  many  people  the  very  name  "Spy"  excites 
a  shudder  of  apprehension;  we  Spies,  in 
fact,  get  quite  used  to  being  shuddered 
at.  None  of  us  Spies  mind  it  at  all. 
Whenever  I  enter  a  hotel  and  register  myself 
as  a  Spy  I  am  quite  accustomed  to  see  a  thrill 
of  fear  run  round  the  clerks,  or  clerk,  behind 
the  desk. 

Us  Spies  or  We  Spies — for  we  call  ourselves 
both — are  thus  a  race  apart.  None  know  us. 
All  fear  us.  Where  do  we  live?  Nowhere. 
Where  are  we?  Everywhere.  Frequently  we 
don't  know  ourselves  where  we  are.  The  se- 
cret orders  that  we  receive  come  from  so  high 
up  that  it  is  often  forbidden  to  us  even  to  ask 
where  we  are.  A  friend  of  mine,  or  at  least 
a  Fellow  Spy — us  spies  have  no  friends — one 
of  the  most  brilliant  men  in  the  Hungarian 
Secret  Service,  once  spent  a  month  in  New  York 

9 


Frenzied  Fiction 


under  the  impression  that  he  was  in  Winnipeg. 
If  this  happened  to  the  most  brilliant,  think  of 
the  others. 

All,  I  say,  fear  us.  Because  they  know  and 
have  reason  to  know  our  power.  Hence,  in 
spite  of  the  prejudice  against  us,  we  are  able 
to  move  ever5rwhere,  to  lodge  in  the  best  hotels, 
and  enter  any  society  that  we  wish  to  penetrate. 

Let  me  relate  an  Incident  to  illustrate  this :  A 
month  ago  I  entered  one  of  the  largest  of  the 
New  York  hotels  which  I  will  merely  call  the 
B.  hotel  without  naming  it :  to  do  so  might  blast 
it.  We  spies,  in  fact,  never  name  a  hotel.  At 
the  most  we  indicate  it  by  a  number  known  only 
to  ourselves,  such  as  i,  2,  or  3. 

On  my  presenting  myself  at  the  desk  the  clerk 
informed  me  that  he  had  no  room  vacant.  I 
knew  this  of  course  to  be  a  mere  subterfuge; 
whether  or  not  he  suspected  that  I  was  a  spy  I 
cannot  say.  I  was  muffled  up,  to  avoid  recog- 
nition, in  a  long  overcoat  with  the  collar  turned 
up  and  reaching  well  above  my  ears,  while  the 
black  beard  and  the  moustache,  that  I  had 
sHpped  on  in  entering  the  hotel,  concealed  my 

10 


My  Revelations  as  a  Spy 


face.  *'Let  me  speak  a  moment  to  the  mana- 
ger," I  said.  When  he  came  I  beckoned  him 
aside  and  taking  his  ear  in  my  hand  I  breathed 
two  words  into  it.  *'Good  heavens !"  he  gasped, 
while  his  face  turned  as  pale  as  ashes.  *'Is  it 
enough?"  I  asked.  "Can  I  have  a  room,  or 
must  I  breathe  again?"  "No,  no,"  said  the 
manager,  still  trembling.  Then,  turning  to  the 
clerk:  "Give  this  gentleman  a  room,"  he  said, 
"and  give  him  a  bath." 

What  these  two  words  are  that  will  get  a 
room  In  Nev/  York  at  once  I  must  not  divulge. 
Even  now,  when  the  veil  of  secrecy  is  being 
lifted,  the  international  interests  involved  are 
too  complicated  to  permit  it.  Suffice  it  to  say 
that  if  these  two  had  failed  I  know  a  couple  of 
others  still  better. 

I  narrate  this  incident,  otherwise  trivial,  as 
indicating  the  astounding  ramifications  and  the 
ubiquity  of  the  international  spy  system.  A 
similar  illustration  occurs  to  me  as  I  write.  I 
was  v/alking  the  other  day  with  another  gentle- 
man— on  upper  B.  way  between  the  T.  Building 
and  the  W.  Garden. 

II 


Frenzied  Fiction 


"Do  you  see  that  man  over  there?*'  I  said, 
pointing  from  the  side  of  the  street  on  which 
we  were  walking  on  the  sidewalk  to  the  other 
side  opposite  to  the  side  that  we  were  on. 

**The  man  with  the  straw  hat?"  he  asked. 
"Yes,  what  of  him?" 

*'0h,  nothing,"  I  answered,  "except  that  he's 
a  Spy!" 

"Great  heavens !"  exclaimed  my  acquaintance 
leaning  up  against  a  lamppost  for  support.  "A 
Spy!  How  do  you  know  that?  What  does  it 
mean?" 

I  gave  a  quiet  laugh — we  spies  learn  to  laugh 
very  quietly.  "Ha!"  I  said,  "that  is  my  secret, 
my  friend.  Verhum  sapienthis!  Che  sara 
sara!     Yodel  doodle  dooT^ 

My  acquaintance  fell  in  a  dead  faint  upon 
the  street.  I  watched  them  take  him  away  in 
an  ambulance.  Will  the  reader  be  surprised  to 
learn  that  among  the  white-coated  attendants 
who  removed  him  I  recognised  no  less  a  person 
than  the  famous  Russian  spy  Poullspantzoff. 
What  he  was  doing  there  I  could  not  tell.  No 
doubt  his  orders  came  from  so  high  up  that  he 

12 


My  Revelations  as  a  Spy 


himself  did  not  know.  I  had  seen  him  only  twice 
before — once  when  we  were  both  disguised  as 
Zulus  at  Buluwayo,  and  once  in  the  interior  of 
China,  at  the  time  when  Poulispantzoff  made 
his  secret  entry  into  Thibet  concealed  in  a  tea- 
case.  He  was  inside  the  tea-case  when  I  saw 
him;  so  at  least  I  was  informed  by  the  coolies 
who  carried  it.  Yet  I  recognised  him  instantly. 
Neither  he  nor  I,  however,  gave  any  sign  of 
recognition  other  than  an  imperceptible  move- 
ment of  the  outer  eyelid.  (We  spies  learn  to 
move  the  outer  lid  of  the  eye  so  imperceptibly 
that  it  cannot  be  seen.)  Yet  after  meeting 
Poulispantzoff  in  this  way  I  was  not  surprised  to 
read  in  the  evening  papers  a  few  hours  after- 
ward that  the  uncle  of  the  young  King  of  Siam 
had  been  assassinated.  The  connection  be- 
tween these  two  events  I  am  unfortunately  not 
at  liberty  to  explain;  the  consequences  to  the 
Vatican  would  be  too  serious.  I  doubt  if  it 
could  remain  top-side  up. 

These,  however,  are  but  passing  incidents  in 
a  life  filled  with  danger  and  excitement.  They 
would   have    remained   unrecorded   and   unre- 

13 


Frenzied  Fiction 


vealed,  like  the  rest  of  my  revelations,  were  it 
not  that  certain  recent  events  have  to  some  ex- 
tent removed  the  seal  of  secrecy  from  my  lips. 
The  death  of  a  certain  royal  sovereign  makes  it 
possible  for  me  to  divulge  things  hitherto  undi- 
vulgible.  Even  now  I  can  only  tell  a  part,  a 
small  part,  of  the  terrific  things  that  I  know. 
When  more  sovereigns  die  I  can  divulge  more. 
I  hope  to  keep  on  divulging  at  intervals  for 
years.  But  I  am  compelled  to  be  cautious.  My 
relations  with  the  Wilhelmstrasse,  with  Down- 
ing Street  and  the  Quai  d'Orsay,  are  so  inti- 
mate, and  my  footing  with  the  Yildiz  Kiosk  and 
the  Waldorf-Astoria  and  Childs'  Restaurants 
are  so  delicate,  that  a  single  faux  pas  might 
prove  to  be  a  false  step. 

It  is  now  seventeen  years  since  I  entered  the 
Secret  Service  of  the  G.  empire.  During  this 
time  my  activities  have  taken  me  into  every 
quarter  of  the  globe,  at  times  even  into  even 
eighth  or  sixteenth  of  it.  It  was  I  who  first 
brought  back  word  to  the  Imperial  Chancellor 
of  the  existence  of  an  Entente  between  England 
and  France.     "Is  there  an  entente?"  he  asked 

14 


My  Revelations  as  a  Spy 


me,  trembling  with  excitement,  on  my  arrival 
at  the  Wilhelmstrasse.  "Your  Excellency/^  I 
said,  "there  Is."  He  groaned.  "Can  you 
stop  it?"  he  asked. 

"Don't  ask  me,"  I  said  sadly.  "Where  must 
we  strike?"  demanded  the  Chancellor.  "Fetch 
me  a  map,"  I  said.  They  did  so.  I  placed  my 
finger  on  the  map.  "Quick,  quick,"  said  the 
Chancellor,  "look  where  his  finger  is."  They 
lifted  it  up.  "Morocco!"  they  cried.  I  had 
meant  it  for  Abyssinia  but  it  was  too  late  to 
change.  That  night  the  warship  Panther  sailed 
under  sealed  orders.  The  rest  is  history,  or 
at  least  history  and  geography. 

In  the  same  way  it  was  I  who  brought  word 
to  the  Wilhelmstrasse  of  the  rapprochement  be- 
tween England  and  Russia  in  Persia.  "What 
did  you  find?"  asked  the  Chancellor  as  I  laid 
aside  the  Russian  disguise  in  which  I  had  trav- 
elled. "A  Rapprochement r  I  said.  He 
groaned.  "They  seem  to  get  all  the  best 
words,"  he  said. 

I  shall  always  feel,  to  my  regret,  that  I  am 
personally  responsible  for  the  outbreak  of  the 
15 


Frenzied  Fiction 


present  war.  It  may  have  had  ulterior  causes. 
But  there  Is  no  doubt  that  it  was  precipitated 
by  the  fact  that,  for  the  first  time  In  seventeen 
years,  I  took  a  six  weeks'  vacation  In  June  and 
July  of  1 9 14.  The  consequences  of  this  care- 
less step  I  ought  to  have  foreseen.  Yet  I  took 
such  precautions  as  I  could.  "Do  you  think,'* 
I  asked,  "that  you  can  preserve  the  status  quo 
for  six  weeks,  merely  six  weeks,  if  I  stop  spying 
and  take  a  rest?"  "We'll  try,"  they  answered. 
"Remember,"  I  said,  as  I  packed  my  things, 
"keep  the  Dardanelles  closed;  have  the  Sandjak 
of  Novl  Bazaar  properly  patrolled,  and  let  the 
Dobrudja  remain  under  a  modus  vivendi  till  I 
come  back." 

Two  months  later,  while  sitting  sipping  my 
coffee  at  a  Kurhof  In  the  Schwarzwald,  I  read 
in  the  newspapers  that  a  German  army  had  In- 
vaded France  and  was  fighting  the  French,  and 
that  the  English  expeditionary  force  had  crossed 
the  Channel.  "This,"  I  said  to  myself,  "means 
war."     As  usual,  I  was  right. 

It  is  needless  for  me  to  recount  here  the  life 
of  busy  activity  that  falls  to  a  Spy  in  wartime. 

16 


My  Revelations  as  a  Spy 


It  was  necessary  for  me  to  be  here,  there  and 
everywhere,  visiting  all  the  best  hotels,  water- 
ing-places, summer  resorts,  theatres,  and  places 
of  amusement.  It  was  necessary,  moreover,  to 
act  with  the  utmost  caution  and  to  assume  an 
air  of  careless  indolence  in  order  to  lull  suspi- 
cion asleep.  With  this  end  in  view  I  made  a 
practice  of  never  rising  till  ten  in  the  morning. 
I  breakfasted  with  great  leisure,  and  contented 
myself  with  passing  the  morning  in  a  quiet 
stroll,  taking  care,  however,  to  keep  my  ears 
open.  After  lunch  I  generally  feigned  a  light 
sleep,  keeping  my  ears  shut.  A  table  d'hote 
dinner,  followed  by  a  visit  to  the  theatre, 
brought  the  strenuous  day  to  a  close.  Few 
spies,  I  venture  to  say,  worked  harder  than  I 
did. 

It  was  during  the  third  year  of  the  war  that 
I  received  a  peremptory  summons  from  the  head 
of  the  Imperial  Secret  Service  at  Berlin,  Baron 
Fisch  von  Gestern.  "I  want  to  see  you,"  it 
read.  Nothing  more.  In  the  life  of  a  Spy  one 
learns  to  think  quickly,  and  to  think  is  to  act. 
I  gathered  as  soon  as  I  received  the  despatch 
17 


Frenzied  Fiction 


that  for  some  reason  or  other  Fisch  von  Ges- 
tern  was  anxious  to  see  me,  having,  as  I  in- 
stantly inferred,  something  to  say  to  me.  This 
conjecture  proved  correct. 

The  Baron  rose  at  my  entrance  with  military 
correctness  and  shook  hands. 

"Are  you  willing,"  he  inquired,  "to  under- 
take a  mission  to  America?" 

"I  am,"  I  answered. 

"Very  good.     How  soon  can  you  start?" 

"As  soon  as  I  have  paid  the  few  bills  that 
I  owe  in  Berlin,"  I  replied. 

"We  can  hardly  wait  for  that,"  said  my  chief, 
"and  in  case  it  might  excite  comment.  You 
must  start  to-night!" 

"Very  good,"  I  said. 

"Such,"  said  the  Baron,  "are  the  Kaiser's  or- 
ders. Here  is  an  American  passport  and  a 
photograph  that  will  answer  the  purpose.  The 
likeness  is  not  great,  but  it  is  sufficient." 

"But,"  I  objected,  abashed  for  a  moment, 
"this  photograph  is  of  a  man  with  whiskers  and 
I  am,  unfortunately,  clean-shaven." 

"The  orders  are  imperative,"  said  Von  Ges- 
i8 


My  Revelations  as  a  Spy 


tern,  with  official  hauteur.  "You  must  start 
to-night.  You  can  grow  whiskers  this  after- 
noon.'' 

"Very  good,"  I  replied. 

"And  now  to  the  business  of  your  mission," 
continued  the  Baron.  "The  United  States,  as 
you  have  perhaps  heard,  is  making  war  against 
Germany." 

"I  have  heard  so,"  I  replied. 

"Yes,"  continued  Von  Gestern.  "The  fact 
has  leaked  out, — how  we  do  not  know, — and  is 
being  widely  reported.  His  Imperial  Maj- 
esty has  decided  to  stop  the  war  with  the 
United  States."     I  bowed. 

"He  intends  to  send  over  a  secret  treaty  of 
the  same  nature  as  the  one  recently  made  with 
his  recent  Highness  the  recent  Czar  of  Russia. 
Under  this  treaty  Germany  proposes  to  give 
to  the  United  States  the  whole  of  equatorial 
Africa  and  in  return  the  United  States  is  to 
give  to  Germany  the  whole  of  China.  There 
are  other  provisions,  but  I  need  not  trouble 
you  with  them.     Your  mission  relates,  not  to 

19 


Frenzied  Fiction 


the  actual  treaty,  but  to  the  preparation  of  the 
ground."     I  bowed  again. 

*'You  are  aware,  I  presume,"  continued  the 
Baron,  ''that  in  all  high  international  dealings, 
at  least  in  Europe,  the  ground  has  to  bt  pre- 
pared. A  hundred  threads  must  be  unravelled. 
This  the  Imperial  Government  itself  cannot 
stoop  to  do.  The  work  must  be  done  by  agents 
like  yourself.  You  understand  all  this  already, 
no  doubt?"     I  indicated  my  assent. 

*'These,  then,  are  your  instructions,"  said  the 
Baron,  speaking  slowly  and  distinctly,  as  if  to 
impress  his  words  upon  my  memory.  ''On  your 
arrival  in  the  United  States  you  will  follow  the 
accredited  methods  that  are  known  to  be  used 
by  all  the  best  spies  of  the  highest  diplomacy. 
You  have  no  doubt  read  some  of  the  books,  al- 
most manuals  of  instruction,  that  they  have 
written?" 

"I  have  read  many  of  them,"  I  said. 

"Very  well.  You  will  enter,  that  is  to  say, 
enter  and  move  everywhere  in  the  best  society. 
Mark  specially,  please,  that  you  must  not  only 
20 


My  Revelations  as  a  Spy 


enter  it  but  you  must  move.  You  must,  if  I 
may  put  it  so,  get  a  move  on."     I  bowed. 

"You  must  mix  freely  with  the  members  of 
the  Cabinet.  You  must  dine  with  them.  This 
is  a  nw^st  necessary  matter  and  one  to  be  kept 
well  in  mind.  Dine  with  them  often  in  such  a 
way  as  to  make  yourself  familiar  to  them. 
Will  you  do  this?" 

"I  will,"  I  said. 

"Very  good.  Remember  also  that  in  order 
to  mask  your  purpose  you  must  constantly  be 
seen  with  the  most  fashionable  and  most  beau- 
tiful women  of  the  American  capital.  Can  you 
do  this?" 

"Can  I?"  I  said. 

"You  must  if  need  be" — and  the  Baron  gave 
a  most  significant  look  v/hich  was  not  lost  upon 
me — "carry  on  an  intrigue  with  one  or,  better, 
with  several  of  them.     Are  you  ready  for  it?" 

"More  than  ready,"  I  said. 

"Very  good.  But  this  is  only  a  part.  You 
are  expected  also  to  familiarise  yourself  with 
the  leaders  of  the  great  financial  interests.  You 
are  to  put  yourself  on  such  a  footing  with  them 

21 


Frenzied  Fiction 


as  to  borrow  large  sums  of  money  from  them. 
Do  you  object  to  this?" 

"No,"  I  said  frankly,  "I  do  not." 

"Good!  You  Avill  also  mingle  freely  in  Am- 
bassadorial and  foreign  circles.  It  would  be 
well  for  you  to  dine,  at  least  once  a  week,  with 
the  British  Ambassador.  And  now  one  final 
word" — here  Von  Gestern  spoke  with  singu- 
lar impressiveness — "as  to  the  President  of  the 
United  States." 

"Yes,"  I  said. 

"You  must  mix  with  him  on  a  footing  of  the 
most  open-handed  friendliness.  Be  at  the 
White  House  continually.  Make  yourself  in 
the  fullest  sense  of  the  words  the  friend  and 
adviser  of  the  President.  All  this  I  think  is 
clear.  In  fact,  it  is  only  what  is  done,  as  you 
know,  by  all  the  masters  of  international  dip- 
lomacy." 

"Precisely,"  I  said. 

"Very  good.  And  then,"  continued  the 
Baron,  "as  soon  as  you  find  yourself  sufficiently 
en  rapport  with  evei7body — or  I  should  say," 
he  added  in  correction,  for  the  Baron  shares 

22 


My  Revelations  as  a  Spy 


fully  in  the  present  German  horror  of  imported 
French  words,  'Svhen  you  find  yourself  suffi- 
ciently in  enggekniipfterverwandtschaft  with 
everybody,  you  may  then  proceed  to  advance 
your  peace  terms.  And  now,  my  dear  fellow^" 
said  the  Baron,  with  a  touch  of  genuine  cor- 
diality, "one  word  more.  Are  you  in  need  of 
money?" 

"Yes,"  I  said. 

"I  thought  so.  But  you  will  find  that  you 
need  it  less  and  less  as  you  go  on.  Meantime, 
good-bye,  and  best  wishes  for  your  mission." 

Such  was,  such  is,  in  fact,  the  mission  with 
which  I  am  accredited.  I  regard  it  as  by  far 
the  most  important  mission  with  which  I  have 
been  accredited  by  the  Wilhelmstrasse.  Yet 
I  am  compelled  to  admit  that  up  to  the  present 
it  has  proved  unsuccessful.  My  attempts  to 
carry  it  out  have  been  baffled.  There  is  some- 
thing perhaps  in  the  atmosphere  of  this  republic 
which  obstructs  the  working  of  high  diplomacy. 
For  over  five  months  now  I  have  been  waiting 
and  willing  to  dine  with  the  American  Cabinet. 
They  have  not  invited  me.  For  four  weeks  I 
23 


Frenzied  Fiction 


sat  each  night  waiting  In  the  J.  hotel  in  Wash- 
ington with  my  suit  on  ready  to  be  asked.  They 
did  not  come  near  me. 

Nor  have  I  yet  received  an  intimation  from 
the  British  Embassy  inviting  me  to  an  informal 
lunch  or  to  midnight  supper  with  the  Ambassa- 
dor. Everybody  who  knows  anything  of  the 
inside  working  of  the  international  spy  system 
will  realize  that  without  these  invitations  one 
can  do  nothing.  Nor  has  the  President  of  the 
United  States  given  any  sign.  I  have  sent  word 
to  him,  in  cipher,  that  I  am  ready  to  dine  with 
him  on  any  day  that  may  be  convenient  to  both 
of  us.     He  has  made  no  move  in  the  matter. 

Under  these  circumstances  an  intrigue  with 
any  of  the  leaders  of  fashionable  society  has 
proved  impossible.  My  attempts  to  approach 
them  have  been  misunderstood — in  fact,  have 
led  to  my  being  invited  to  leave  the  J.  hotel. 
The  fact  that  I  was  compelled  to  leave  it,  ow- 
ing to  reasons  that  I  cannot  reveal,  without  pay- 
ing my  account,  has  occasioned  unnecessary  and 
dangerous  comm.ent.  I  connect  it,  in  fact,  with 
the  singular  attitude  adopted  by  the  B.  hotel 

24 


My  Revelations  as  a  Spy 


on  my  arrival  in  New  York,  to  which  I  have 
already  referred. 

I  have  therefore  been  compelled  to  fall  back 
on  revelations  and  disclosures.  Here  again 
I  find  the  American  atmosphere  singularly  un- 
congenial. I  have  offered  to  reveal  to  the 
Secretary  of  State  the  entire  family  history  of 
Ferdinand  of  Bulgaria  for  fifty  dollars.  He 
says  it  is  not  worth  it.  I  have  offered  to  the 
British  Embassy  the  inside  story  of  the  Abdi- 
cation of  Constantine  for  five  dollars.  They 
say  they  know  it  and  knew  It  before  It  hap- 
pened. I  have  offered,  for  little  more  than  a 
nominal  sum,  to  blacken  the  character  of  every 
reigning  family  in  Germany.  I  am  told  that 
it  Is  not  necessary. 

Meantime,  as  It  is  impossible  to  return  to 
Central  Europe,  I  expect  to  open  either  a  fruit 
store  or  a  peanut  stand  very  shortly  In  this  great 
metropolis.  I  imagine  that  many  of  my  former 
colleagues  will  soon  be  doing  the  same! 


25 


//. — Father  Knickerbocker — 
A  Fantasy 

IT  happened  quite  recently — I  think  it  must 
have  been  on  April  the  second  of  19 17, — 
that  I  was  making  the  long  pilgrimage  on 
a  day-train  from  the  remote  place  where 
I  dwell  to  the  city  of  New  York.  And  as  we 
drew  near  the  city,  and  day  darkened  into  night, 
I  had  fallen  to  reading  from  a  quaint  old  copy 
of  Washington  Irving's  immortal  sketches  of 
Father  Knickerbocker  and  of  the  little  town 
where  once  he  dwelt. 

I  had  picked  up  the  book  I  know  not  where. 
Very  old  it  apparently  was  and  made  in  Eng- 
land. For  there  was  pasted  across  the  flyleaf  of 
it  an  extract  from  some  ancient  magazine  or 
journal  of  a  century  ago,  giving  what  was  evi- 
dently a  description  of  the  New  York  of  that 
day. 

From  reading  the  book  I  turned — my  head 
still  filled  with  the  vision  of  Father  Knicker- 
26 


Father  Knickerbocker — A  Fantasy 

bocker  and  Sleepy  Hollow  and  Tarrytown — to 
examine  the  extract.  I  read  it  in  a  sort  of  half- 
doze,  for  the  dark  had  fallen  outside,  and  the 
drowsy  throbbing  of  the  running  train  attuned 
one's  mind  to  dreaming  of  the  past. 

"The  town  of  New  York" — so  ran  the  extract 
pasted  in  the  little  book — "is  pleasantly  situ- 
ated at  the  lower  extremity  of  the  Island  of 
Manhattan.  Its  recent  progress  has  been  so 
amazing  that  it  is  now  reputed,  on  good  author- 
ity, to  harbour  at  least  twenty  thousand  souls. 
Viewed  from  the  sea  it  presents,  even  at  the 
distance  of  half  a  mile,  a  striking  appearance 
owing  to  the  number  and  beauty  of  its  church 
spires  which  rise  high  above  the  roofs  and  fo- 
liage and  give  to  the  place  its  characteristically 
religious  aspect.  The  extreme  end  of  the  island 
is  heavily  fortified  with  cannon,  commanding 
a  range  of  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  and  forbidding 
all  access  to  the  harbour.  Behind  this  Bat- 
tery a  neat  greensward  affords  a  pleasant 
promenade  where  the  citizens  are  accustomed 
to  walk  with  their  wives  every  morning  after 
church," 

27 


Frenzied  Fiction 


"How  I  should  like  to  have  seen  it!"  I  mur- 
mured to  myself  as  I  laid  the  book  aside  for  a 
moment — "the  Battery,  the  harbour  and  the 
citizens  walking  with  their  wives,  their  own 
wives,  on  the  greensward." 

Then  I  read  on : 

"From  the  town  itself  a  wide  thoroughfare, 
the  Albany  Post  Road,  runs  meandering  north- 
ward through  the  fields.  It  is  known  for  some 
distance  under  the  name  of  the  Broad  Way, 
and  is  so  wide  that  four  moving  vehicles  are 
said  to  be  able  to  pass  abreast.  The  Broad 
Way,  especially  in  the  springtime  when  it  is 
redolent  with  the  scent  of  clover  and  apple- 
blossoms,  is  a  favourite  evening  promenade  for 
the  citizens  (with  their  vv^ives)  after  church. 
Here  they  may  be  seen  any  evening  strolling 
toward  the  high  ground  overlooking  the  Hud- 
son, their  wives  on  one  arm,  a  spyglass  under 
the  other,  in  order  to  view  what  they  can  see. 
Down  the  Broad  Way  may  be  seen  moving  also 
droves  of  young  lambs  with  their  shepherds, 
proceeding  to  the  market,  while  here  and  there 
28 


Father  Knickerbocker — A  Fantasy 

a  goat  stands  quietly  munching  beside  the  road 
and  gazing  at  the  passers-by.'* 

"It  seems,"  I  muttered  to  myself  as  I  read, 
''in  some  ways  but  little  changed  after  all." 

"The  town,"  so  the  extract  continued,  "is  not 
without  its  amusements.  A  commodious  theatre 
presents  with  great  success  every  Saturday  night 
the  plays  of  Shakespeare  alternating  with 
sacred  concerts;  the  New  Yorker,  indeed,  is 
celebrated  throughout  the  provinces  for  his  love 
of  amusement  and  late  hours.  The  theatres  do 
not  come  out  until  long  after  nine  o'clock,  while 
for  the  gayer  habitues  two  excellent  restaurants 
serve  fish,  macaroni,  prunes  and  other  delicacies 
till  long  past  ten  at  night.  The  dress  of  the 
New  Yorker  is  correspondingly  gay.  In  the 
other  provinces  the  men  wear  nothing  but  plain 
suits  of  a  rusty  black,  whereas  in  New  York 
there  are  frequently  seen  suits  of  brown,  snuff- 
colour  and  even  of  pepper-and-salt.  The  cos- 
tumes of  the  New  York  women  are  equally  dar- 
ing, and  differ  notably  from  the  quiet  dress  of 
New  England. 

"In  fine,  it  Is  commonly  said  in  the  provinces 
29 


Frenzied  Fiction 


that  a  New  Yorker  can  be  recognised  anywhere, 
with  his  wife,  by  their  modish  costumes,  their 
easy  manners  and  their  willingness  to  spend 
money — two,  three  and  even  five  cents  being 
paid  for  the  smallest  service." 

"Dear  me,"  I  thought,  as  I  paused  a  moment 
in  my  reading,  "so  they  had  begun  it  even 
then." 

"The  whole  spirit  of  the  place,"  the  account 
continued,  "has  recently  been  admirably  em- 
bodied in  literary  form  by  an  American  writer, 
Mr.  Washington  Irving  (not  to  be  confounded 
with  George  Washington).  His  creation  of 
Father  Knickerbocker  is  so  lifelike  that  it  may 
be  said  to  embody  the  very  spirit  of  New  York. 
The  New  Yorkers  of  to-day  are  accustomed 
indeed  to  laugh  at  Mr.  Irving's  fancy  and  to 
say  that  Knickerbocker  belongs  to  a  day  long 
since  past.  Yet  those  who  know  tell  us  that 
the  image  of  the  amiable  old  gentleman,  kindly 
but  irascible,  generous  and  yet  frugal,  loving 
his  town  and  seeing  little  beyond  it,  may  be 
held  once  and  for  all  to  typify  the  spirit  of 
30 


Father  Knickerbocker — A  Fantasy 

the  place,  without  reference  to  any  particular 
time  or  generation." 

"Father  Knickerbocker  I"  I  murmured,  as  I 
felt  myself  dozing  off  to  sleep,  rocked  by  the 
motion  of  the  car.  "Father  Knickerbocker — 
how  strange  if  he  could  be  here  again  and  see 
the  great  city  as  we  know  it  now!  How  dif- 
ferent from  his  day !  How  I  should  love  to  go 
round  New  York  and  show  it  to  him  as  it  is." 

So  I  mused  and  dozed  till  the  very  rumble 
of  the  wheels  seemed  to  piece  together  in  little 
snatches  —  "Father  Knickerbocker  —  Father 
Knickerbocker — the  Battery — the  Battery — the 
citizens  walking  with  their  wives,  with  their 
wives — their  own  wives" — until  presently,  I 
imagine,  I  must  have  fallen  asleep  altogether 
and  knew  no  more  till  my  journey  was  over  and 
I  found  myself  among  the  roar  and  bustle  of 
the  concourse  of  the  Grand  Central. 

And  there,  lo  and  behold,  waiting  to  meet 
me,  was  Father  Knickerbocker  himself!  I 
know  not  how  it  happened,  by  what  queer  freak 
of  hallucination  or  by  what  actual  miracle — 
let  those  explain  it  who  deal  in  such  things — 

31 


Frenzied  Fiction 


but  there  he  stood  before  me,  with  an  out- 
stretched hand  and  a  smile  of  greeting — Father 
Knickerbocker  himself,  the  Embodied  Spirit  of 
New  York. 

*'How  strange,"  I  said.  *'I  was  just  reading 
about  you  in  a  book  on  the  train  and  imagining 
how  much  I  should  like  actually  to  meet  you 
and  to  show  you  round  New  York." 

The  old  man  laughed  in  a  jaunty  way. 

''Show  me  round?"  he  said.  "Why,  my  dear 
boy,  /  live  here." 

"I  know  you  did  long  ago,"  I  said. 

"I  do  still,"  said  Father  Knickerbocker. 
**rve  never  left  the  place.  I'll  show  you  around. 
But  wait  a  bit — don't  carry  that  handbag.  I'll 
get  a  boy  to  call  a  porter  to  fetch  a  man  to 
take  it." 

"Oh,  I  can  carry  it,"  I  said;  "it's  a  mere 
nothing." 

"My  dear  fellow,"  said  Father  Knicker- 
bocker, a  little  testily  I  thought,  "I'm  as  demo- 
cratic and  as  plain  and  simple  as  any  man  in 
this  city.  But  when  it  comes  to  carrying  a  hand- 
bag in  full  sight  of  all  this  crowd,  why,  as  I 
32 


Father  Knickerbocker— A  Fantasy 

said  to  Peter  Stuyvesant  about — about" — here 
a  misty  look  seemed  to  come  over  the  old  gen- 
tleman's face — "about  two  hundred  years  aga 
— I'll  be  hanged  if  I  will.  It  can't  be  done* 
It's  not  up  to  date." 

While  he  was  saying  this,  Father  Knicker- 
bocker had  beckoned  to  a  group  of  porters. 
"Take  this  gentleman's  handbag,"  he  said,  "and 
you  carry  his  newspapers,  and  you  take  his  um- 
brella. Here's  a  quarter  for  you  and  a  quarter 
for  you  and  a  quarter  for  you.  One  of  you  go 
in  front  and  lead  the  way  to  a  taxi." 

"Don't  you  know  the  way  yourself?"  I  asked 
in  a  half-whisper. 

**Of  course  I  do,  but  I  generally  like  to  walk 
with  a  boy  in  front  of  me.  We  all  do.  Only 
the  cheap  people  nowadays  find  their  own  way." 

Father  Knickerbocker  had  taken  my  arm 
and  was  walking  along  in  a  queer,  excited  fash- 
ion, senile  and  yet  with  a  sort  of  forced  youth- 
fulness  in  his  gait  and  manner. 

"Now  then,"  he  said,  "get  into  this  taxi." 

"Can't  we  walkf  I  asked. 


Frenzied  Fiction 


''Impossible,"  said  the  old  gentleman.  "It's 
five  blocks  to  where  we  are  going." 

As  we  took  our  seats  I  looked  again  at  my 
companion,  this  time  more  closely.  Father 
Knickerbocker  he  certainly  was,  yet  somehow 
strangely  transformed  from  my  pictured  fancy 
of  the  Sleepy  Hollow  days.  His  antique  coat 
with  its  wide  skirt  had,  it  seemed,  assumed  a 
modish  cut  as  if  in  imitation  of  the  bell-shaped 
spring  overcoat  of  the  young  man  about  town. 
His  three-cornered  hat  was  set  at  a  rakish  angle 
till  it  looked  almost  like  an  up-to-date  fedora. 
The  great  stick  that  he  used  to  carry  had  some- 
how changed  itself  into  the  curved  walking-stick 
of  a  Broadway  lounger.  The  soHd  old  shoes 
with  their  wide  buckles  were  gone.  In  their 
place  he  wore  narrow  slippers  of  patent  leather 
of  which  he  seemed  inordinately  proud,  for  he 
had  stuck  his  feet  up  ostentatiously  on  the  seat 
opposite.  His  eye  followed  my  glance  toward 
his  shoes. 

"For  the  fox-trot,"  he  said,  "the  old  ones 
were  no  good.  Have  a  cigarette?  These  are 
Armenian,  or  would  you  prefer  a  Honolulan  or 
34 


Father  Knickerbocker — A  Fantasy 

a  Nigerian?  Now,"  he  resumed,  when  we  had 
lighted  our  cigarettes,  "what  would  you  like  to 
do  first?  Dance  the  tango?  Hear  some  Ha- 
waiian music,  drink  cocktails,  or  what?" 

''Why,  what  I  should  like  most  of  all,  Father 
Knickerbocker ' ' 

But  he  Interrupted  me.  "There's  a  devilish 
fine  woman !  Look,  the  tall  blonde  one !  Give 
me  blondes  every  time!"  Here  he  smacked  his 
lips.  "By  gad,  sir,  the  women  in  this  town  seem 
to  get  finer  every  century.  What  were  you 
saying?" 

"Why,  Father  Knickerbocker,"  I  began,  but 
he  Interrupted  me  again. 

"My  dear  fellow,"  he  said.  "May  I  ask  you 
not  to  call  me  Father  Knickerbocker?" 

"But  I  thought  you  were  so  old,"  I  said 
humbly. 

"Old!  Me  old/  Oh,  I  don't  know.  Why, 
dash  it,  there  are  plenty  of  men  as  old  as  I  am 
dancing  the  tango  here  every  night.  Pray  call 
me,  if  you  don't  mind,  just  Knickerbocker,  or 
simply  Knicky — most  of  the  other  boys  call 
me  Knicky.    Now  what's  it  to  be?" 

35 


Frenzied  Fiction 


"Most  of  all,"  I  said,  "I  should  like  to  go  to 
some  quiet  place  and  have  a  talk  about  the  old 
days." 

"Right,"  he  said.  "We're  going  to  just  the 
place  now — nice  quiet  dinner,  a  good  quiet  or- 
chestra— Hawaiian,  but  quiet — and  lots  of 
women."  Here  he  smacked  his  lips  again,  and 
nudged  me  with  his  elbow.  "Lots  of  women, 
bunches  of  them.     Do  you  like  women?" 

"Why,  Mr.  Knickerbocker,"  I  said  hesitat- 
ingly, "I  suppose — I " 

The  old  man  sniggered  as  he  poked  me  again 
in  the  ribs. 

"You  bet  you  do,  you  dog!"  he  chuckled. 
"We  all  do.  For  me,  I  confess  it,  sir,  I  can't 
sit  down  to  dinner  without  plenty  of  women, 
stacks  of  them,  all  round  me." 

Meantime  the  taxi  had  stopped.  I  was  about 
to  open  the  door  and  get  out. 

"Wait,  wait,"  said  Father  Knickerbocker, 
his  hand  upon  my  arm,  as  he  looked  out  of  the 
window.  "I'll  see  somebody  in  a  minute  who'll 
let  us  out  for  fifty  cents.    None  of  us  here  ever 

36 


Father  Knickerbocker — A  Fantasy 

get  In  or  out  of  anything  by  ourselves.     It's 
bad  form.    Ah  I     Here  he  Is!" 

A  moment  later  we  had  passed  through  the 
portals  of  a  great  restaurant,  and  found  our- 
selves surrounded  with  all  the  colour  and  tu- 
mult of  a  New  York  dinner  a  la  mode.  A  burst 
of  wild  music,  pounded  and  thrummed  out  on 
ukuleles  by  a  group  of  yellow  men  in  Hawaiian 
costume,  filled  the  room,  helping  to  drown  or 
perhaps  only  serving  to  accentuate  the  babel 
of  talk  and  the  clatter  of  dishes  that  arose  on 
every  side.  Men  In  evening  dress  and  women 
In  all  the  colours  of  the  rainbow,  decollete  to  a 
degree,  were  seated  at  little  tables,  blowing 
blue  smoke  Into  the  air,  and  drinking  green- 
and-yellow  drinks  from  glasses  with  thin  stems. 
A  troupe  of  cabaret  performers  shouted  and 
leaped  on  a  little  stage  at  the  side  of  the  room, 
unheeded  by  the  crowd. 

'*Ha !  ha !"  said  Knickerbocker,  as  we  drew 
In  our  chairs  to  a  table,  "some  place,  eh? 
There's  a  peach!  Look  at  her!  Or  do  you 
like  better  that  lazy-looking  brunette  next  to 
her?" 

37 


Frenzied  Fiction 


Mr.  Knickerbocker  was  staring  about  the 
room,  gazing  at  the  women  with  open 
effrontery,  and  a  senile  leer  upon  his  face.  I 
felt  ashamed  of  him.  Yet,  oddly  enough,  no 
one  about  us  seemed  In  the  least  disturbed. 

"Now,  what  cocktail  will  you  have?"  said 
my  companion.  "There's  a  new  one  this  week 
— The  Fantan,  fifty  cents  each — will  you  have 
that?  Right!  Two  Fantans.  Now  to  eat — 
what  would  you  like?" 

"May  I  have,"  I  said,  "a  slice  of  cold  beef 
and  a  pint  of  ale?" 

"Beef!"  said  Knickerbocker  contemptuously. 
"My  dear  fellow,  you  can't  have  that.  Beef 
is  only  fifty  cents.  Do  take  something  reason- 
able. Try  Lobster  Newburg — or  no,  here's  a 
more  expensive  thing — Filet  Bourbon  a,  la 
something — I  don't  know  what  it  is,  but  by 
gad,  sir,  it's  three  dollars  a  portion  anyway." 

"All  right,"  I  said.  "You  order  the  dinner." 
Mr.  Knickerbocker  proceeded  to  do  so,  the 
head-waiter  obsequiously  at  his  side,  and  his 
long  finger  indicating  on  the  menu  everything 

38 


Father  Knickerbocker — A  Fantasy 

that  seemed  most  expensive  and  that  carried  the 
most  incomprehensible  name. 

When  he  had  finished  he  turned  to  me  again. 
^'Now,"  he  said,  "let's  talk." 

"Tell  me,"  I  said,  "about  the  old  days  and 
the  old  cimes  on  Broadway." 

"Ah,  yes,"  he  answered,  "the  old  days — ^you 
mean  ten  years  ago  before  the  Winter  Garden 
was  opened.  We've  been  going  ahead,  sir,  go- 
ing ahead.  Why,  ten  years  ago  there  was  prac- 
tically nothing,  sir,  above  Times  Square,  and 
look  at  it  now." 

I  began  to  realise  that  Father  Knickerbocker, 
old  as  he  was,  had  forgotten  all  the  earlier 
times  with  which  I  associated  his  memory. 
There  was  nothing  left  but  the  cabarets,  and 
the  Gardens,  the  Palm  Rooms  and  the  ukuleles 
of  to-day.  Behind  that  his  mind  refused  to 
travel. 

"Don't  you  remember,"  I  asked,  "the  apple 
orchards  and  the  quiet  groves  of  trees  that  used 
to  line  Broadway  long  ago?" 

"Groves!"  he  said.  "I'll  show  you  a  grove, 
a  cocoanut  grove," — here  he  winked  over  his 

39 


Frenzied  Fiction 


wineglass  In  a  senile  fashion — "that  has  apple- 
trees  beaten  from  here  to  Honolulu."  Thus  he 
babbled  on. 

All  through  our  meal  his  talk  continued — of 
cabarets  and  dances,  of  fox-trots  and  midnight 
suppers,  of  blondes  and  brunettes,  "peaches" 
and  "dreams,"  and  all  the  while  his  eye  roved 
incessantly  among  the  tables,  resting  on  the 
women  with  a  bold  stare.  At  times  he  would 
indicate  and  point  out  for  me  some  of  what  he 
called  the  "representative  people"  present. 

"Notice  that  man  at  the  second  table,"  he 
would  whisper  across  to  me;  "he's  worth  all 
the  way  to  ten  millions:  made  It  in  government 
contracts;  they  tried  to  send  him  to  the  peni- 
tentiary last  fall  but  they  can't  get  him — he's 
too  smart  for  them !  I'll  introduce  you  to  him 
presently.  See  the  man  with  him?  That's  his 
lawyer — biggest  crook  in  America,  they  say — 
we'll  meet  him  after  dinner."  Then  he  would 
suddenly  break  off  and  exclaim:  "Egad,  sir, 
there's  a  fine  bunch  of  them,"  as  another  bevy 
of  girls  came  trooping  out  upon  the  stage. 
40 


Father  Knickerbocker — A  Fantasy 

"I  wonder,"  I  murmured,  "if  there  is  noth- 
ing left  of  him  but  this?  Has  all  the  fine  old 
spirit  gone  ?  Is  it  all  drowned  out  in  wine  and 
suffocated  in  the  foul  atmosphere  of  luxury?" 

Then  suddenly  I  looked  up  at  my  companion, 
and  I  saw  to  my  surprise  that  his  whole  face 
and  manner  had  altered.  His  hand  was 
clenched  tight  on  the  edge  of  the  table.  His 
eyes  looked  before  him — through  and  beyond 
the  riotous  crowd  all  about  him — into  vacancy, 
into  the  far  past,  back  into  memories  that  I 
thought  forgotten.  His  face  had  altered.  The 
senile,  leering  look  was  gone,  and  in  its  place 
the  firm-set  face  of  the  Knickerbocker  of  a 
century  ago. 

He  was  speaking  in  a  strange  voice,  deep  and 
strong.  "Listen,"  he  said,  "listen.  Do  you 
hear  it — there — far  out  at  sea — ships'  guns — 
listen — they're  calling  for  help — ships'  guns — 
far  out  at  sea!"  He  had  clasped  me  by  the 
arm.  "Quick,  to  the  Battery,  they'll  need  every 
man  to-night,  they'll  .  .  ." 

Then  he  sank  back  into  his  chair.  His  look 
41 


Frenzied  Fiction 


changed  again.  The  vision  died  out  of  his 
eyes. 

*'What  was  I  saying?"  he  asked.  '*Ah,  yes 
— this  old  brandy — a  very  special  brand.  They 
keep  it  for  me  here — a  dollar  a  glass.  They 
know  me  here,"  he  added  in  his  fatuous  way — 
"all  the  waiters  know  me.  The  headwaiter 
always  knows  me  the  minute  I  come  into  the 
room — keeps  a  chair  for  me.  Now  try  this 
brandy  and  then  presently  we'll  move  on  and 
see  what's  doing  at  some  of  the  shows." 

But  somehow,  in  spite  of  himself,  my  com- 
panion seemed  to  be  unable  to  bring  himself 
fully  back  into  the  consciousness  of  the  scene 
before  him.  The  far-away  look  still  lingered 
in  his  eyes. 

Presently  he  turned  and  spoke  to  me  m  a  low, 
confidential  tone.  "Was  I  talking  to  myself 
a  moment  ago?"  he  asked.  "Yes?  Ah!  I 
feared  I  was.  Do  you  know,  I  don't  mind  tell- 
ing it  to  you — lately  I've  had  a  strange,  queer 
feeling  that  comes  over  me  at  times,  as  if  some- 
thing were  happening — something,  I  don't 
know  what.  I  suppose,"  he  continued,  with  a 
42 


Father  Knickerbocker — A  Fantasy 

false  attempt  at  resuming  his  fatuous  manner, 
'Tm  going  the  pace  a  little  too  hard,  eh! 
Makes  one  fanciful  .  .  .  but  the  fact  is,  at 
times" — he  spoke  gravely  again — "I  feel  as  if 
there  were  something  happening,  something 
coming  .  .  ." 

''Knickerbocker,"  I  said  earnestly,  "Father 
Knickerbocker,  don't  you  know  that  something 
is  happening — that  this  very  evening  as  we  are 
sitting  here  in  all  this  riot,  the  President  of  the 
United  States  is  to  come  before  Congress  on 
the  most  solemn  mission  that  ever  .   .  ." 

But  my  speech  fell  unheeded.  Knicker- 
bocker had  picked  up  his  glass  again  and  was 
leering  over  it  at  a  bevy  of  girls  dancing  upon 
the  stage. 

"Look  at  that  girl,"  he  interrupted  quickly, 
"the  one  dancing  at  the  end — what  do  you  think 
of  her,  eh?    Some  peach!" 

Knickerbocker  broke  off  suddenly.      For  at 

this  moment  our  ears  caught  the  sound  of  a 

noise,  a  distant  tumult,  as  it  were,  far  down  the 

street  and  growing  nearer.     The  old  man  had 

43 


Frenzied  Fiction 


drawn  himself  erect  in  his  seat,  his  hand  to  his 
ear,  listening  as  he  caught  the  sound. 

"Out  on  the  Broad  Way,"  he  said,  in- 
stinctively calling  it  by  its  ancient  name  as  if 
a  flood  of  memories  were  upon  him.  "Do  you 
hear  it? — listen — listen — what  is  it?  I've 
heard  that  sound  before — I've  heard  every 
sound  on  the  Broad  Way  these  two  centuries 
back — what  is  it?     I  seem  to  know  it!" 

The  sound  and  tum.ult  as  of  running  feet  and 
of  many  voices  crying  came  louder  from  the 
street.  The  people  at  the  tables  had  turned 
in  their  seats  to  listen.  The  music  of  the  or- 
chestra had  stopped.  The  waiters  had  thrown 
back  the  heavy  curtains  from  the  windows  and 
the  people  were  crowding  to  them  to  look  out 
into  the  street.  Knickerbocker  had  risen  in  his 
place,  his  eyes  looked  toward  the  windows,  but 
his  gaze  was  fixed  on  vacancy  as  with  one  who 
sees  a  vision  passing. 

"I  know  the  sound,"  he  cried.  *T  see  it  all 
again.  Look,  can't  you  see  them?  It's  Massa- 
chusetts soldiers  marching  South  to  the  war — 
can't  you  hear  the  beating  of  the  drums  and 
44 


Father  Knickerbocker — A  Fantasy 

the  shrill  calling  of  the  fife — the  regiments 
from  the  North,  the  first  to  come.  I  saw  them 
pass,  here  where  we  are  sitting,  sixty  years 
ago " 

Knickerbocker  paused  a  moment,  his  hand 
still  extended  In  the  air,  and  then  with  a  great 
light  upon  his  face  he  cried : 

"I  know  it  now !  I  know  what  It  meant,  the 
feeling  that  has  haunted  mt — the  sounds  I  kept 
hearing — the  guns  of  the  ships  at  sea  and  the 
voices  calling  in  distress!  I  know  now.  It 
means,  sir,  it  means  .  .  ." 

But  as  he  spoke  a  great  cry  came  up  from 
the  street  and  burst  in  at  the  doors  and  win- 
dows, echoing  In  a  single  word: 

WAR  I  WAR !  The  message  of  the  Presi- 
dent Is  for  WAR ! 

*'War!"  cried  Father  Knickerbocker,  rising 
to  his  full  height,  stem  and  majestic  and  shout- 
ing In  a  stentorian  tone  that  echoed  through  the 
great  room. 

"War !  War !  To  your  places,  every  one  of 
you !  Be  done  with  your  Idle  luxury !  Out  with 
the  glare  of  your  lights !     Begone  you  painted 

45 


Frenzied  Fiction 


women  and  worthless  men!  To  your  places 
every  man  of  you !  To  the  Battery !  Man  the 
guns — stand  to  it,  every  one  of  you  for  the 
defence  of  America — for  our  New  York,  New 
York " 

Then  with  the  sound  "New  York,  New 
York"  still  echoing  in  my  ears  I  woke  up.  The 
vision  of  my  dream  was  gone.  I  was  still  on 
the  seat  of  the  car  where  I  had  dozed  asleep, 
the  book  upon  my  knee.  The  train  had  arrived 
at  the  depot  and  the  porters  were  calling  into 
the  doorway  of  the  car — "New  York,  New 
York." 

All  about  me  was  the  stir  and  hubbub  of  the 
great  depot.  But  loud  over  it  all  was  heard 
the  call  of  the  newsboys  crying  "WAR !  WAR ! 
The  President's  message  is  for  WAR!  Late 
extra!     WAR!     WAR!" 

And  I  knew  that  a  great  nation  had  cast  aside 
the  bonds  of  sloth  and  luxury,  and  v/as  girding 
itself  to  join  in  the  fight  for  the  free  democracy 
of  all  mankind. 


46 


Ill— The  Prophet  in  Our  Midst 

THE  Eminent  Authority  looked  round 
at  the  little  group  of  us  seated  about 
him  at  the  club.  He  was  telling  us,  or 
beginning  to  tell  us,   about  the  out- 
come of  the  war.     It  was  a  thing  we  wanted  to 
know.    We  were  listening  attentively.    We  felt 
that  we  were  "getting  something." 

"I  doubt  very  much,"  he  said,  ^'whether 
Downing  Street  realises  the  enormous  power 
which  the  Quai  d'Orsay  has  over  the  Yildiz 
Kiosk." 

"So  do  I,"  I  said,  "what  is  it?" 
But    he    hardly    noticed    the    interruption. 
"YouVe  got  to  remember,"  he  went  on,  "that 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Yildiz,  the  WIl- 
helmstrasse  is  just  a  thing  of  yesterday." 
"Quite  so,"  I  said. 

"Of  course,"  he  added,  "the  Ballplatz  is  quite 
different." 

"Altogether   different,"   I   admitted.     "And 
47 


Frenzied  Fiction 


mind  you,"  he  said,  ''the  Ballplatz  Itself  can  be 
largely  moved  from  the  Qulrinal  through  the 
Vatican." 

*'Why  of  course  It  can,"  I  agreed,  with  as 
much  relief  In  my  tone  as  I  could  put  into  It. 
After  all,  what  simpler  way  of  moving  the  Ball- 
platz than  that? 

The  Eminent  Authority  took  another  sip  at 
his  tea,  and  looked  round  at  us  through  his  spec- 
tacles. It  was  I  who  was  taking  on  myself  to 
do  most  of  the  answering,  because  It  was  I  who 
had  brought  him  there  and  Invited  the  other 
men  to  meet  him. 

"He's  coming  round  at  five,"  I  had  said,  "do 
come  and  have  a  cup  of  tea  and  meet  him.  He 
knows  more  about  the  European  situation  and 
the  probable  solution  than  any  other  man  liv- 
ing." Naturally  they  came  gladly.  They 
'wanted  to  know, — as  everybody  wants  to  know, 
— how  the  war  will  end.  They  were  just  ordi- 
nary plain  men  like  myself. 

I  could  see  that  they  were  a  little  mystified, 
perhaps  disappointed.  They  would  have  liked, 
just  as  I  would,  to  ask  a  few  plain  questions, 
48 


The  Prophet  in  Our  Midst 

such  as,  can  the  Italians  knock  the  stuff  out  of 
the  Austrians?  Are  tiie  Roumanians  getting 
licked  or  notl  How  many  submarines  has  Ger- 
many got,  anyway?  Such  questions,  in  fact, 
as  we  are  accustomed  to  put  up  to  one  another 
every  day  at  lunch  and  to  answer  out  of  the 
morning  paper.  As  it  was,  we  didn't  seem  to 
be  getting  anywhere. 

No  one  spoke.  The  silence  began  to  be  even 
a  little  uncomfortable.  It  was  broken  by  my 
friend  Rapley,  who  is  in  wholesale  hardware 
and  who  has  all  the  intellectual  bravery  that 
goes  with  it.  He  asked  the  Authority  straight 
out  the  question  that  we  all  wanted  to  put. 

*7ust  what  do  you  mean  by  the  Ballplatz? 
What  Is  the  Ballplatz?" 

The  Authority  smiled  an  engaging  smile. 
"Precisely,"  he  said,  "I  see  your  drift  exactly. 
You  say  what  is  the  Ballplatz?  I  reply  quite 
frankly  that  It  Is  almost  Impossible  to  answer. 
Probably  one  could  best  define  It  as  the  driving 
power  behind  the  Ausglelch." 

"I  see,"  said  Rapley. 

"Though  the  plain  fact  Is  that  ever  since 
the  Herzegovlnlan  embrogllo  the  Ballplatz  is 

49 


Frenzied  Fiction 


little  more  than  a  counterpoise  to  the  Wllhelm- 
strasse.'' 

^^Ah!"  saldRapley. 

"Indeed,  as  everybody  knows,  the  whole  re- 
lationship of  the  Ballplatz  with  the  NevskI 
Prospekt  has  emanated  from  the  Wilhelm- 
strasse." 

This  was  a  thing  which  personally  I  had  not 
known.  But  I  said  nothing.  Neither  did  the 
other  men.  They  continued  smoking,  looking 
as  Innocent  as  they  could. 

"Don't  misunderstand  me,"  said  the  Author- 
ity, "when  I  speak  of  the  Nevski  Prospekt.  I 
am  not  referring  in  any  way  to  the  Tsarskoe 
Selo.'^ 

"No,  no,'*  we  all  agreed. 

"No  doubt  there  were,  as  we  see  it  plainly 
now,  undercurrents  in  all  directions  from  the 
Tsarskoe  Selo."  We  all  seemed  to  suggest  by 
our  attitude  that  these  undercurrents  were  suck- 
ing at  our  very  feet. 

"But  the  Tsarskoe  Selo,"  said  the  Authority, 
"is  now  definitely  ehmlnated." 

We  were  glad  of  that;  we  shifted  our  feet 
back  into  attitudes  of  ease. 
50 


The  Prophet  in  Our  Midst 


I  felt  that  it  was  time  to  ask  a  leading  ques- 
tion. 

"Do  you  think,"  I  said,  "that  Germany  will 
be  broken  up  by  the  war?" 

"You  mean  Germany  in  what  sense?  Are 
you  thinking  of  Preuszenthum?  A.re  you  re- 
ferring to  Junkerismus?" 

"No,"  I  said,  quite  truthfully,  "neither  of 
them." 

"Ah,"  said  the  Authority,  "I  see;  you  mean 
Germany  as  a  Souverantat  embodied  in  a 
Reichsland." 

"That's  it,"  I  said. 

"Then  it's  rather  hard,"  said  the  Eminent 
Authority,  "to  answer  your  question  in  plain 
terms.  But  I'll  try.  One  thing,  of  course,  is 
absolutely  certain,  Mittel-Europa  goes  over- 
board." 

"It  does,  eh?" 

"Oh,  yes,  absolutely.  This  is  the  end  of 
Mittel-Europa.  I  mean  to  say, — here  we've 
had  Mittel-Europa,  that  is,  the  Mittel-Europa 
idea,  as  a  sort  of  fantasmus  in  front  of  Teuton- 
ism  ever  since  Koeniggratz." 

51 


Frenzied  Fiction 


The  Authority  looked  all  round  us  in  that 
searching  way  he  had.  We  all  tried  to  look 
like  men  seeing  a  fantasmus  and  disgusted  at  it. 

**So  you  see,"  he  went  on,  "Mittel-Europa  is 
done  with." 

"I  suppose  it  is,"  I  said.  I  didn't  knoiy  just 
whether  to  speak  with  regret  or  not.  I  heard 
Rapley  murmur,  '*I  guess  so." 

"And  there  is  not  a  doubt,"  continued  the 
Authority,  "that  when  Mittel-Europa  goes, 
Grossdeutschthum  goes  with  it." 

"Oh,  sure  to,"  we  all  murmured. 

"Well,  then,  there  you  are, — what  is  the  re- 
sult for  Germany, — why  the  thing's  as  plain 
as  a  pikestaff, — in  fact  you're  driven  to  it  by  the 
sheer  logic  of  the  situation, — there  is  only  one 
outcome, — " 

The  Authority  was  speaking  very  deliber- 
ately. He  even  paused  at  this  point  and  lighted 
a  cigarette,  while  we  all  listened  breathlessly. 
We  felt  that  we  had  got  the  thing  to  a  focus 
at  last. 

"Only  one  outcome, — a  Staatenbund." 
52 


The  Prophet  in  Our  Midst 

"Great  heavens/'  I  said,  "not  a  Staaten- 
bund!" 

"Undoubtedly,"  said  the  Authority,  puffing 
quietly  at  his  cigarette,  as  if  personally  he 
wouldn't  lift  a  finger  to  stop  the  Staatenbund  if 
he  could,  "that's  the  end  of  it,  a  Staatenbund. 
In  other  words,  we  are  back  where  we  were 
before  the  Vienna  Congress!" 

At  this  he  chuckled  heartily  to  himself:  so 
the  rest  of  us  laughed  too:  the  thing  was  too 
absurd.  But  the  Authority,  who  was  a  man  of 
nice  distinctions  and  genuinely  anxious  to  in- 
struct us,  was  evidently  afraid  that  he  had  over- 
stated things  a  little. 

"Mind  you,"  he  said,  "there'll  be  something 
left, — certainly  the  Zollverein  and  either  the 
Ausgleich  or  something  very  like  it." 

All  of  the  men  gave  a  sort  of  sigh  of  relief. 
It  was  certainly  something  to  have  at  least  a 
sort  of  resemblance  or  appearance  of  the  Aus- 
gleich among  us.  We  felt  that  we  were  getting 
on.  One  could  see  that  a  number  of  the  men 
were  on  the  brink  of  asking  questions. 

"What  about  Roumania,"  asked  Nelles  (he 
S2 


Frenzied  Fiction 


is    a    banker    and    interested    in    government 
bonds),  "is  this  the  end  of  it?" 

''No,"  said  the  'Authority,  "it's  not  the  end 
of  Roumania,  but  it  is  the  end  of  Roumanian 
Irredentismus." 

That  settled  Nelles. 

"What  about  the  Turks?"  asked  Rapley. 

"The  Turks, — or  rather,  I  suppose  it  would 
be  more  proper  to  say,  the  Osmanli,  as  that  is 
no  doubt  what  you  mean, — "  (Rapley  nodded.) 
"Well,  speaking  personally,  I  should  say  that 
there's  no  difficulty  in  a  permanent  settlement  in 
that  quarter.  If  I  were  drawing  up  the  terms 
of  a  treaty  of  peace  meant  to  be  really  lasting 
I  should  lay  down  three  absolute  bases;  the  rest 
needn't  matter — " 

The  Authority  paused  a  moment  and  then 
proceeded  to  count  off  the  three  conditions  of 
peace  on  his  fingers, — 

"These  would  be,  first,  the  evacuation  of  the 
Sandjak;  second,  an  international  guarantee  for 
the  Capitulations,  and  third,  for  internal  mat- 
ters, an  arrangement  along  the  lines  of  the  ori- 
ginal firman  of  Midhat  Pasha." 

54 


The  Pi'ophet  in  Our  Midst 


A  murmur  of  complete  satisfaction  went 
round  the  group. 

''I  don't  say/'  continued  the  Eminent  Author- 
ity, "that  there  wouldn't  be  other  minor  mat- 
ters to  adjust;  but  they  would  be  a  mere  detail; 
you  ask  me,  for  Instance,  for  a  milice,  or  at 
least  a  gendarmerie.  In  the  Albanian  hinterland; 
very  good,  I  grant  It  you  at  once.  You  retain, 
If  you  like,  you  abolish  the  Cyprlotic  suzerainty 
of  the  Porte, — all  right.  These  are  matters  of 
indifference." 

We  all  assumed  a  look  of  utter  Indifference. 

*'But  what  about  the  Dardanelles?  Would 
you  have  them  fixed  so  that  ships  could  go 
through,  or  not?"  asked  Rapley.  He  Is  a  plain 
man,  not  easily  put  down  and  liking  a  plain 
answer.     He  got  It. 

'The  Dardanelles,"  said  the  Authority, 
"could  easily  be  denationalized  under  a  quadri- 
lateral guarantee  to  be  made  a  pars  materia  of 
the  pactum  foederis." 

"That  ought  to  hold  them,"  I  murmured. 
The  Authority  felt  now  that  he  had  pretty  well 
settled  the  map  of  Europe. 


Frenzied  Fiction 


He  rose  and  shook  hands  with  us  all  around 
very  cordially.  We  did  not  try  to  detain  him. 
We  felt  that  time  like  his  was  too  valuable  to 
be  wasted  on  things  like  us. 

"Well, — I  tell  you,"  said  Rapley,  as  we  set- 
tled back  into  our  chairs  when  the  Great  Au- 
thority had  gone, — "my  own  opinion,  boys,  is 
that  the  United  States  and  England  can  trim 
Germany  and  Austria  any  day  in  the  week  and 
twice  on  Sunday."  After  which  somebody  else 
said,  "I  wonder  how  many  of  these  submarines 
Germany  has,  anyway."  And  then  we  drifted 
back  into  the  humbler  kind  of  war  talk  that  we 
have  been  carrying  on  for  three  years. 

But  later,  as  we  walked  home  together,  Rap- 
ley  said  to  me,  "That  fellow  threw  a  lot  of 
light  on  things  in  Europe,  didn't  he?"  And 
I  answered,  "Yes." 

What  liars  we  all  are! 


56 


IV. — Personal  Adventures  in  the 
Spirit  World 

DO  not  write  what  follows  with  the  expec- 
tation of  convincing  or  converting  any- 
body. We  Spiritualists — or  Spiritists 
(we  call  ourselves  both,  or  either)  — 
never  ask  anybody  to  believe  us.  If  they  do, 
well  and  good.  If  not,  all  right.  Our  attitude 
simply  is  that  facts  are  facts.  There  they  are; 
believe  them  or  not  as  you  like.  As  I  said  the 
other  night,  In  conversation  with  Aristotle  and 
John  Bunyan  and  George  Washington  and  a 
few  others,  why  should  anybody  believe  us? 
Aristotle,  I  recollect,  said  that  all  that  he  wished 
was  that  everybody  should  know  how  happy^he 
was;  and  Washington  said  that  for  his  part,  if 
people  only  knew  how  bright  and  beautiful  It 
all  was  where  he  was,  they  would  willingly,  In- 
deed gladly,  pay  the  mere  dollar — itself  only  a 
nominal  fee — that  it  cost  to  talk  to  him.  Bun- 
57 


Frenzied  Fiction 


yan,  I  remember,  added  that  he  himself  was 
quite  happy. 

But,  as  I  say,  I  never  ask  anybody  to  believe 
me;  the  more  so  as  I  was  once  an  absolute  scep- 
tic myself.  As  I  see  it  now,  I  was  prejudiced. 
The  mere  fact  that  spiritual  seances  and  the 
services  of  a  medium  involved  the  payment  of 
money  condemned  the  whole  thing  in  my  eyes. 
I  did  not  realise,  as  I  do  now,  that  these  medii, 
like  anybody  else,  have  got  to  live;  otherwise 
they  would  die  and  become  spirits. 

Nor  would  I  now  place  these  disclosures  be- 
fore the  public  were  it  not  that  I  think  that  in 
the  present  crisis  they  will  prove  of  value  to  the 
Allied  cause. 

But  let  me  begin  at  the  beginning.  My  own 
conversion  to  spiritualism  came  about,  like  that 
of  so  many  others,  through  the  more-or-less 
casual  remark  of  a  Friend. 

Noticing  me  one  day  gloomy  and  depressed, 
this  Friend  remarked  to  me :  "Have  you  any  be- 
lief in  Spiritualism?"  Had  it  come  from  any 
one  else,  I  should  have  turned  the  question  aside 
with  a  sneer. 

58 


Personal  Adventures  in  the  Spirit  World 

But  it  so  happens  that  I  owe  a  great  deal  of 
gratitude  to  this  particular  Friend.  It  was  he 
who,  at  a  time  when  I  was  so  afflicted  with  rheu- 
matism that  I  could  scarcely  leap  five  feet  into 
the  air  without  pain,  said  to  me  one  day  quite 
casually:  "Have  you  ever  tried  Pyro  for  your 
rheumatism?"  One  month  later  I  could  leap 
ten  feet  in  the  air  (had  I  been  able  to)  without 
the  slightest  malaise.  The  same  man,  I  may 
add,  hearing  me  one  day  exclaiming  to  myself: 
"Oh!  If  there  were  anything  that  would  re- 
move the  stains  from  my  clothes!"  said  to  me 
very  simply  and  quietly:  "Have  you  ever 
washed  them  in  Luxo?"  It  was  he  too  who, 
noticing  a  haggard  look  on  my  face  after  break- 
fast one  morning,  inquired  immediately  what 
I  had  been  eating  for  breakfast;  after  which, 
with  a  simplicity  and  directness  which  I  shall 
never  forget,  he  said:  "Why  not  eat  HuMPO?" 

Nor  can  I  ever  forget  my  feeling  on  another 
occasion  when,  hearing  me  exclaim  aloud:  "Oh! 
If  there  were  only  something  invented  for  re- 
moving the  proteins  and  amygdaloids  from  a 
carbonised  diet  and  leaving  only  the  pure  nitro- 
59 


Frenzied  Fiction 


genous  life-giving  elements!"  seized  my  hand 
in  his,  and  said  in  a  voice  thrilled  with  emotion : 
'There  is!     It  has!" 

The  reader  will  understand,  therefore,  that  a 
question,  or  query,  from  such  a  Friend  was  not 
to  be  put  lightly  aside.  When  he  asked:  "Do 
you  believe  in  Spiritualism?"  I  answered  with 
perfect  courtesy:  "To  be  quite  frank,  I  do  not." 

There  was  silence  between  us  for  a  time,  and 
then  my  Friend  said:  "Have  you  ever  given  it 
atrial?" 

I  paused  a  moment,  as  the  idea  was  a  novel 
one. 

"No,"  I  answered,  "to  be  quite  candid,  I 
have  not." 

Neither  of  us  spoke  for  perhaps  twenty  min- 
utes after  this,  when  my  Friend  said:  "Have 
you  anything  against  it?" 

I  thought  awhile  and  then:  "Yes,"  I  said,  "I 
have." 

My  Friend  remained  silent  for  perhaps  half 
an  hour.  Then  he  asked:  "What?"  I  medi- 
tated for  some  time.     Then  I  said: 

"This — it  seems  to  me  that  the  whole  thing 
60 


Personal  Adventures  in  the  Spirit  World 

is  done  for  money.  How  utterly  unnatural  it 
is  to  call  up  the  dead — one's  great-grandfather, 
let  us  say — and  pay  money  for  talking  to  him." 

"Precisely,"  said  my  Friend  without  a  mo- 
ment's pause.  "I  thought  so.  Now  suppose  I 
could  bring  you  into  contact  with  the  spirit 
world  through  a  medium,  or  through  different 
medii,  without  there  being  any  question  of 
money,  other  than  a  merely  nominal  fee — the 
money  being,  as  it  were,  left  out  of  count,  and 
regarded  as  only,  so  to  speak,  nominal,  some- 
thing given  merely  pro  forma  and  ad  interim. 
Under  these  circumstances,  will  you  try  the  ex- 
periment?" 

I  rose  and  took  my  Friend's  hand. 

"My  dear  fellow,"  I  said,  "I  not  only  will, 
but  I  shall." 

From  this  conversation  dated  my  connection 
with  Spiritualism,  which  has  since  opened  for 
me  a  new  world. 

It  would  be  out  of  place  for  me  to  indicate 
the  particular  address  or  the  particular  methods 
employed  by  the  agency  to  which  my  Friend  in- 
troduced me.  I  am  anxious  to  avoid  anything 
6i 


Frenzied  Fiction 


approaching  a  commercial  tinge  in  what  I  write. 
Moreover,  their  advertisement  can  be  seen 
along  with  many  others — all,  I  am  sure,  just  as 
honourable  and  just  as  trustworthy — in  the  col- 
umns of  any  daily  newspaper.  As  everybody 
knows,  many  methods  are  employed.  The  tap- 
ping of  a  table,  the  movement  of  a  ouija  board, 
or  the  voice  of  a  trance  medium,  are  only  a 
few  among  the  many  devices  by  which  the  spir- 
its now  enter  into  communication  with  us.  But 
in  my  own  case  the  method  used  was  not  only 
simplicity  itself,  but  was  so  framed  as  to  carry 
with  it  the  proof  of  its  own  genuineness.  One 
had  merely  to  speak  into  the  receiver  of  a  tele- 
phone, and  the  voice  of  the  spirit  was  heard 
through  the  transmitter  as  in  an  ordinary  tele- 
phone conversation. 

It  was  only  natural,  after  the  scoffing  remark 
that  I  had  made,  that  I  should  begin  with  my 
great-grandfather.  Nor  can  I  ever  forget  the 
peculiar  thrill  that  went  through  me  when  I 
was  informed  by  the  head  of  the  agency  that  a 
tracer  was  being  sent  out  for  Great-grandfather 
to  call  him  to  the  'phone. 
62 


Personal  Adventures  in  the  Spirit  World 

Great-grandfather — let  me  do  him  this  jus- 
iice — was  prompt.  He  was  there  in  three  min- 
utes. Whatever  his  hne  of  business  was  in  the 
spirit  world — and  I  was  never  able  to  learn 
it — he  must  have  left  it  immediately  and  hur- 
ried to  the  telephone.  Whatever  later  dis- 
satisfaction I  may  have  had  with  Great-grand- 
father, let  me  state  it  fairly  and  honestly,  he  is 
at  least  a  punctual  man.  Every  time  I  called 
he  came  right  away  without  delay.  Let  those 
who  are  inclined  to  cavil  at  the  methods  of  the 
Spiritualists  reflect  how  impossible  it  would  be 
to  secure  such  punctuality  on  anything  but  a 
basis  of  absolute  honesty. 

In  my  first  conversation  with  Great-grand- 
father I  found  myself  so  absurdly  nervous  at  the 
thought  of  the  vast  gulf  of  space  and  time 
across  which  we  were  speaking  that  I  perhaps 
framed  my  questions  somewhat  too  crudely. 

"How  are  you,  Great-grandfather  ?''  I  asked. 

His  voice  came  back  to  me  as  distinctly  as  if 
he  were  in  the  next  room : 

"I  am  happy,  very  happy.  Please  tell  every- 
body that  I  am  happy. ^' 

63 


Frenzied  Fiction 


''Great-grandfather/'  I  said,  "I  will.  I'll 
see  that  everybody  knows  it.  Where  are  you, 
Great-grandfather  ?" 

*'Here,"  he  answered,  "beyond." 

"Beyond  what?'' 

**Here  on  the  other  side." 

"Side  of  which?"  I  asked. 

"Of  the  great  vastness,"  he  answered.  "The 
©ther  end  of  the  Illimitable." 

"Oh,  I  see,"  I  said,  "that's  where  you  are." 
We  were  silent  for  some  time.  It  is  amazing 
how  difficult  It  is  to  find  things  to  talk  about 
with  one's  great-grandfather.  For  the  life  of 
me  I  could  think  of  nothing  better  than :  "What 
sort  of  weather  have  you  been  having?" 

"There  Is  no  weather  here,"  said  Great- 
grandfather. "It's  all  bright  and  beautiful  all 
die  time." 

"You  mean  bright  sunshine?"  I  said. 

"There  is  no  sun  here,"  said  Great-grand- 
father. 

"Then  how  do  you  mean "  I  began. 

But  at  this  moment  the  head  of  the  agency 
tmpped  me  on  the  shoulder  to  remind  me  that 

64 


Personal  Adventures  in  the  Spirit  World 

the  two  minutes'  conversation  for  which  I  had 
deposited,  as  a  nominal  fee,  ^yq  dollars,  had 
expired.  The  agency  was  courteous  enough 
to  inform  me  that  for  five  dollars  more  Great- 
grandfather would  talk  another  two  minutes. 

But  I  thought  it  preferable  to  stop  for  the 
moment. 

Now  I  do  not  wish  to  say  a  word  against  my 
own  great-grandfather.  Yet  in  the  conversa- 
tions which  followed  on  successive  days  I  found 
him — how  shall  I  put  it? — unsatisfactory.  He 
had  been,  when  on  this  side — to  use  the  term 
which  we  Spiritualists  prefer — a  singularly  able 
man — an  English  judge;  so  at  least  I  have  al- 
ways been  given  to  understand.  But  somehow 
Great-grandfather's  brain,  on  the  other  side, 
seemed  to  have  got  badly  damaged.  My  own 
theory  is  that,  living  always  in  the  bright  sun- 
shine, he  had  got  sunstroke.  But  I  may  wrong 
him.  Perhaps  it  was  locomotor  ataxia  that 
he  had.  That  he  was  very,  very  happy  where 
he  was  is  beyond  all  doubt.  He  said  so  at  ev- 
ery conversation.  But  I  have  noticed  that 
feeble-minded  people   are   often   happy.     He 

65 


Frenzied  Fiction 


said,  too,  that  he  was  glad  to  be  where  he  was; 
and  on  the  whole  I  felt  glad  that  he  was  too. 
Once  or  twice  I  thought  that  possibly  Great- 
grandfather felt  so  happy  because  he  had  been 
drinking:  his  voice,  even  across  the  great  gulf, 
seemed  somehow  to  suggest  it.  But  on  being 
questioned  he  told  me  that  where  he  was  there 
was  no  drink  and  no  thirst,  because  it  was  all  so 
bright  and  beautiful.  I  asked  him  if  he  meant 
that  it  was  "bone-dry"  like  Kansas,  or  whether 
the  rich  could  still  get  it?    But  he  didn't  answer. 

Our  intercourse  ended  in  a  quarrel.  No 
doubt  It  was  my  fault.  But  it  did  seem  to  me 
that  Great-grandfather,  who  had  been  one  of 
the  greatest  English  lawyers  of  his  day,  might 
have  handed  out  an  opinion. 

The  matter  came  up  thus:  I  had  had  an 
argument — it  was  in  the  middle  of  last  winter 
— with  some  men  at  my  club  about  the  legal  in- 
terpretation of  the  Adamson  Law.  The  dis- 
pute grew  bitter.  'Tm  right,"  I  said,  *'and 
I'll  prove  it  if  you  give  me  time  to  consult  the 
authorities." 

66 


Personal  Adventures  in  the  Spirit  World 

"Consult  your  great-grandfather!"  sneered 
one  of  the  men. 

"All  right,"  I  said,  "I  will." 

I  walked  straight  across  the  room  to  the  tele- 
phone and  called  up  the  agency.  "Give  me  my 
great-grandfather,"  I  said.  "I  want  him  right 
away." 

He  was  there.  Good,  punctual  old  soul,  I'll 
say  that  for  him.     He  was  there. 

"Great-grandfather,"  I  said,  "I'm  In  a  dis- 
cussion here  about  the  constitutionality  of  the 
Adamson  Law,  Involving  the  power  of  Con- 
gress under  the  Constitution.  Now,  you  re- 
member the  Constitution  when  they  made  it. 
Is  the  lav/  all  right?" 

There  was  silence. 

"How  does  It  stand,  Great-grandfather?"  I 
said.     "Will  it  hold  water?" 

Then  he  spoke. 

"Over  here,"  he  said,  "there  are  no  laws, 
no  members  of  Congress  and  no  Adamsons;  it's 
all  bright  and  beautiful  and " 

"Great-grandfather,"  I  said,  as  I  hung  up  the 

67 


Frenzied  Fiction 


receiver  In  disgust,  **you  are  a  Mutt!"     I  never 
spoke  to  him  again. 

Yet  I  feel  sorry  for  him,  feeble  old  soul, 
flitting  about  in  the  Illimitable,  and  always  so 
punctual  to  hurry  to  the  telephone — so  happy, 
so  feeble-witted  and  so  courteous;  a  better  man, 
perhaps,  take  it  all  in  all,  than  he  was  in  life: 
lonely,  too,  it  may  be,  out  there  in  the  Vast- 
ness.  Yet  I  never  called  him  up  again.  He  is 
happy.     Let  him  stay. 

Indeed,  my  acquaintance  with  the  spirit  world 
might  have  ended  at  that  point  but  for  the  good 
offices,  once  more,  of  my  Friend. 

'Tou  find  your  great-grandfather  a  little 
slow,  a  little  dull?"  he  said.  "Well,  then,  if 
you  want  brains,  power,  energy,  why  not  call 
up  some  of  the  spirits  of  the  great  men,  some  of 
the  leading  men,  for  instance,  of  your  great- 
grandfather's time?" 

"You've  said  it!"  I  exclaimed.  "I'll  call  up 
Napoleon  Bonaparte." 

I  hurried  to  the  Agency. 
68 


Persoruil  Adventures  in  the  Spirit  World 

"Is  It  possible,"  I  asked,  "for  me  to  call  up 
the  Emperor  Napoleon  and  talk  to  him?" 

Possible?  Certainly.  It  appeared  that 
nothing  was  easier.  In  the  case  of  Napoleon 
Bonaparte  the  nominal  fee  had  to  be  ten  dol- 
lars in  place  of  five;  but  it  seemed  to  me  that 
if  Great-grandfather  cost  five,  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte at  ten  was  cheapness  itself. 

"Will  it  take  long  to  get  him?"  I  asked  anx- 
iously. 

"We'll  send  out  a  tracer  for  him  right  away," 
they  said. 

Like  Great-grandfather,  Napoleon  was  punc- 
tual. That  I  will  say  for  him.  If  in  any  way 
I  think  less  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte  now  than 
I  did,  let  me  at  least  admit  that  a  more  punc- 
tual, obliging,  willing  man  I  never  talked  with. 

He  came  in  two  minutes.  "He's  on  the  hne 
now,"  they  said.  I  took  up  the  receiver, 
trembling. 

"Hello!"  I  called.  ''Est-ce  que  c'ejt  FEm- 
pereur  Napoleon  a  qui  fai  I'honneur  de  par- 
lerr 

"How's  that?"  said  Napoleon. 

69 


Frenzied  Fiction 


'^Je  demand  si  je  suis  en  communication  Ofuec 
VEmpereur  Napoleon " 

"Oh!"  said  Napoleon,  'Uat's  all  right; 
speak  English." 

*'What!"  I  said  In  surprise.  "You  know 
English?  I  always  thought  you  couldn't  speak 
a  word  of  It." 

He  was  silent  for  a  minute.     Then  he  said: 

"I  picked  It  up  over  here.  It's  all  right. 
Go  right  ahead." 

"Well,"  I  continued,  "I've  always  admired 
you  so  much,  your  wonderful  brain  and  genius, 
that  I  felt  I  wanted  to  speak  to  you  and  ask 
you  how  you  are.'* 

"Happy,"  said  Napoleon,  "very  happy." 

"That's  good,"  I  said,  "that's  fine!  And 
how  is  It  out  there?  All  bright  and  beautiful, 
eh?" 

"Very  beautiful,"  said  the  Emperor. 

"And  just  where  are  you,"  I  continued. 
"Somewhere  out  in  the  Unspeakable,  I  sup- 
pose, eh?" 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  "out  here  beyond." 

"That's  good,"  I  said,  "pretty  happy,  eh?" 
70 


Personal  Adventures  in  the  Spirit  World 

"Very  happy/'  said  Napoleon.  ''Tell  every- 
body how  happy  I  am." 

"I  know,"  I  answered,  "I'll  tell  them  all. 
But  just  now  I've  a  particular  thing  to  ask. 
We've  got  a  big  war  on,  pretty  well  the  whole 
world  in  it,  and  I  thought  perhaps  a  few  point- 
ers from  a  man  like  you " 

But  at  this  point  the  attendant  touched  me 
on  the  shoulder.     "Your  time  is  up,"  he  said. 

I  was  about  to  offer  to  pay  at  once  for  two 
minutes  more  when  a  better  idea  struck  me. 
Talk  with  Napoleon?  I'd  do  better  than  that. 
I'd  call  a  whole  War  Council  of  great  spirits, 
lay  the  war  crisis  before  them  and  get  the  big- 
gest brains  that  the  world  ever  produced  to 
work  on  how  to  win  the  war. 

Whom  should  I  have  ?  Let  me  see !  Napo- 
leon himself,  of  course.  I'd  bring  him  back. 
And  for  the  sea  business,  the  submarine  prob- 
lem, I'd  have  Admiral  Nelson.  George  Wash- 
ington, naturally,  for  the  American  end;  for 
politics,  say,  good  old  Ben  Franklin,  the  wisest 
old  head  that  ever  walked  on  American  legs, 
and  witty,  too;  yes,  Franklin  certainly,  if  only 

71 


Frenzied  Fiction 


for  his  wit  to  keep  the  council  from  getting 
gloomy;  Lincoln — honest  old  Abe — him  cer- 
tainly I  must  have.  Those  and  perhaps  a  few 
others. 

I  reckoned  that  a  consultation  at  ten  dollars 
apiece  with  spirits  of  that  class  was  cheap  to  the 
verge  of  the  ludicrous.  Their  advice  ought  to 
be  worth  millions — yes,  billions — to  the  cause. 

The  agency  got  them  for  me  without  trou- 
ble. There  is  no  doubt  they  are  a  punctual 
crowd,  over  there  beyond  in  the  Unthinkable. 

I  gathered  them  all  in  and  talked  to  them,  all 
and  severally,  the  payment,  a  merely  nominal 
matter,  being  made,  pro  forma^  in  advance. 

I  have  in  front  of  me  in  my  rough  notes  the 
result  of  their  advice.  When  properly  drafted 
it  will  be,  I  feel  sure,  one  of  the  most  important 
state  documents  produced  in  the  war. 

In  the  personal  sense — I  have  to  admit  It — 
I  found  them  just  a  trifle  disappointing.  Frank- 
lin, poor  fellow,  has  apparently  lost  his  wit. 
The  spirit  of  Lincoln  seemed  to  me  to  have 
none  of  that  homely  wisdom  that  he  used  to 
have.  And  It  appears  that  we  were  quite  mis- 
72 


Personal  Adventures  in  the  Spirit  World 

taken  in  thinking  Benjamin  Disraeli  a  brilliant 
man;  it  is  clear  to  me  now  that  he  was  dull — 
just  about  as  dull  as  Great-grandfather,  I 
should  say.  Washington,  too,  is  not  at  all  the 
kind  of  man  we  thought  him. 

Still,  these  are  only  personal  impressions. 
They  detract  nothing  from  the  extraordinary 
value  of  the  advice  given,  which  seems  to  me  to 
settle  once  and  forever  any  lingering  doubt 
about  the  value  of  communications  with  the 
Other  Side. 

My  draft  of  their  advice  runs  in  part  as  fol- 
lows : 

The  Spirit  of  Admiral  Nelson,  on  being 
questioned  on  the  submarine  problem,  holds 
that  if  all  the  m.en  on  the  submarines  were 
where  he  is  everything  would  be  bright  and 
happy.  This  seems  to  me  an  invaluable  hint. 
There  is  nothing  needed  now  except  to  put  them 
there. 

The  advice  of  the  Spirit  of  Napoleon  about 
the  campaign  on  land  seemed  to  me,  if  possible, 
of  lower  value  than  that  of  Nelson  on  the  cam- 
paign at  sea.  It  is  hardly  conceivable  that 
73 


Frenzied  Fiction 


Napoleon  has  forgotten  where  the  Marne  is. 
But  it  may  have  changed  since  his  day.  At  any 
rate,  he  says  that  if  ever  the  Russians  cross  the 
Marne,  all  is  over.  Coming  from  such  a  mas- 
ter-strategist, this  ought  to  be  attended  to, 

Franklin,  on  being  asked  whether  the  United 
States  had  done  right  in  going  into  the  war, 
said  Yes;  asked  whether  the  country  could  with 
honour  have  stayed  out,  he  said  No.  There  is 
guidance  here  for  thinking  men  of  all  ranks. 

Lincoln  is  very  happy  where  he  is.  So  too, 
I  was  amazed  to  find,  is  Disraeli.  In  fact,  it 
was  most  gratifying  to  learn  that  all  of  the  great 
spirits  consulted  are  very  happy,  and  want 
everybody  to  know  how  happy  they  are. 
Where  they  are,  I  may  say,  it  is  all  bright  and 
beautiful. 

Fear  of  trespassing  on  their  time  prevented 
me  from  questioning  each  of  them  up  to  the  full 
limit  of  the  period  contracted  for. 

I  understand  that  I  have  still  to  my  credit 

at  the  agency  five  minutes'  talk  with  Napoleon, 

available  at  any  time,  and  similarly  five  minutes 

each  with  FrankHn   and  Washington,   to   say 

74 


Personal  Adventures  in  the  Spirit  World 

nothing  of  ten  minutes'   unexpired  time   with 
Great-grandfather. 

All  of  these  opportunities  I  am  willing  to 
dispose  of  at  a  reduced  rate  to  any  one  still 
sceptical  of  the  reality  of  the  spirit  world. 


75 


V. — The  Sorrows  of  a  Summer 
Guest 

LET  me  admit,  as  I  start  to  write,  that 
the  whole  thing  is  my  own  fault.     I 
should  never  have  come.     I  knew  bet- 
ter.    I  have  known  better  for  years. 
I  have  known  that  it  is  sheer  madness  to  go  and 
pay  visits  in  other  people's  houses. 

Yet  in  a  moment  of  insanity  I  have  let  myself 
in  for  it  and  here  I  am.  There  is  no  hope,  no 
outlet  now  till  the  first  of  September  when  my 
visit  is  to  terminate.  Either  that  or  death.  I 
do  not  greatly  care  which. 

I  write  this,  where  no  human  eye  can  see  me, 
down  by  the  pond — they  call  it  the  lake — at  the 
foot  of  Beverly-Jones's  estate.  It  is  six  o'clock 
in  the  morning.  No  one  is  up.  For  a  brief 
hour  or  so  there  is  peace.  But  presently  Miss 
Larkspur — ^the  jolly  English  girl  who  arrived 
last  week — will  throw  open  her  casement  win- 

76 


The  Sorrows  of  a  Summer  Guest 

dow  and  call  across  the  lawn,  "Hullo  every- 
body !  What  a  ripping  morning !" — and  young 
Poppleton  will  call  back  in  a  Swiss  yodel  from 
somewhere  In  the  shrubbery,  and  Beverly-Jones 
will  appear  on  the  piazza  with  big  towels  round 
his  neck  and  shout,  "Who's  coming  for  an  early 
dip?"  And  so  the  day's  fun  and  jollity — 
heaven  help  me — will  begin  again. 

Presently  they  will  all  come  trooping  in  to 
breakfast,  In  coloured  blazers  and  fancy  blouses, 
laughing  and  grabbing  at  the  food  with  mimic 
rudeness  and  bursts  of  hilarity.  And  to  think 
that  I  might  have  been  breakfasting  at  my  club 
with  the  morning  paper  propped  against  the 
coffee-pot,  in  a  silent  room  In  the  quiet  of  the 
city. 

I  repeat  that  it  Is  my  own  fault  that  I  am  here. 

For  many  years  it  had  been  a  principle  of  my 
life  to  visit  nobody.  I  had  long  since  learned 
that  visiting  only  brings  misery.  If  I  got  a  card 
or  telegram  that  said,  "Won't  you  run  up  to  the 
Adlrondacks  and  spend  the  week-end  with  us?" 
I  sent  back  word :  "No,  not  unless  the  Adlron- 
dacks can  run  faster  than  I  can,"  or  words  to 
77 


Frenzied  Fiction 


that  effect.  If  the  owner  of  a  country  house 
wrote  to  me:  *'Our  man  will  meet  you  with  a 
trap  any  afternoon  that  you  care  to  name,"  I 
answered,  in  spirit  at  least:  "No,  he  won't,  not 
unless  he  has  a  bear-trap  or  one  of  those  traps 
In  which  they  catch  wild  antelope."  If  any 
fashionable  lady  friend  wrote  to  me  In  the  pe- 
culiar jargon  that  they  use:  "Can  you  give  us 
from  July  the  twelfth  at  half-after-three  till  the 
fourteenth  at  four?"  I  replied:  "Madam,  take 
the  whole  month,  take  a  year,  but  leave  me  in 
peace." 

Such  at  least  was  the  spirit  of  my  answers  to 
Invitations.  In  practice  I  used  to  find  It  suffi- 
cient to  send  a  telegram  that  read:  "Crushed 
with  work  Impossible  to  get  away,"  and  then 
stroll  back  Into  the  reading-room  of  the  club 
and  fall  asleep  again. 

But  my  coming  here  was  my  own  fault.  It 
resulted  from  one  of  those  unhappy  moments 
of  expansiveness  such  as  occur,  I  Imagine,  to 
everybody — moments  when  one  appears  to  be 
something  quite  different  from  what  one  really 
Is,  when  one  feels  oneself  a  thorough  good  fel 

78 


The  Sorrows  of  a  Summer  Guest 

low,  sociable,  merry,  appreciative,  and  finds  the 
people  around  one  the  same.  Such  moods  are 
known  to  all  of  us.  Some  people  say  that  it  is 
the  super-self  asserting  itself.  Others  say  it 
is  from  drinking.  But  let  It  pass.  That  at 
any  rate  was  the  kind  of  mood  that  I  was  in 
when  I  met  Beverly-Jones  and  when  he  asked 
me  here. 

It  was  In  the  afternoon,  at  the  club.  As  I 
recall  it,  we  were  drinking  cocktails  and  I  was 
thinking  what  a  bright,  genial  fellow  Beverly- 
Jones  was,  and  how  completely  I  had  mistaken 
him.  For  myself — I  admit  it — I  am  a 
brighter,  better  man  after  drinking  two  cock- 
tails than  at  any  other  time — quicker,  kindlier, 
more  genial.  And  higher,  morally.  I  had 
been  telling  stories  In  that  Inimitable  way  that 
one  has  after  two  cocktails.  In  reality,  I  only 
know  four  stories,  and  a  fifth  that  I  don't  quite 
remember,  but  in  moments  of  expanslveness 
they  feel  like  a  fund  or  flow. 

It  was  under  such  circumstances  that  I  sat 
with  Beverly-Jones.  And  It  was  In  shaking 
hands  at  leaving  that  he  said:  **I  do  wish,  old 
79 


Frenzied  Fiction 


chap,  that  you  could  run  up  to  our  summer  place 
and  give  us  the  whole  of  August!"  and  I  an- 
swered, as  I  shook  him  warmly  by  the  hand: 
*'My  dear  fellow,  I'd  simply  love  to !"  "By  gad, 
then,  it's  a  go  I"  he  said.  "You  must  come  up 
for  August,  and  wake  us  all  up !" 

Wake  them  up  1  Ye  gods !  Me,  wake  them 
up! 

One  hour  later  I  was  repenting  of  my  folly, 
and  wishing,  when  I  thought  of  the  two  cock- 
tails, that  the  prohibition  wave  could  be  hurried 
up  so  as  to  leave  us  all  high  and  dry — bone- 
dry,  silent  and  unsociable. 

Then  I  clung  to  the  hope  that  Beverly-Jones 
would  forget.  But  no.  In  due  time  his  wife 
wrote  to  me.  They  were  looking  forward  so 
much,  she  said,  to  my  visit;  they  felt — she  re- 
peated her  husband's  ominous  phrase — that  I 
should  wake  them  all  up  I 

What  sort  of  alarm-clock  did  they  take  me 
for,  anyway! 

Ah,  well !  They  know  better  now.  It  was 
only  yesterday  afternon  that  Beverly-Jones 
found  me  standing  here  in  the  gloom  of  some 
80 


The  Sorrows  of  a  Summer  Gvest 

cedar-trees  beside  the  edge  of  the  pond  and 
took  me  back  so  quietly  to  the  house  that  I 
realised  he  thought  I  meant  to  drown  myself. 
So  I  did. 

I  could  have  stood  it  better — ^my  coming  here, 
I  mean — If  they  hadn't  come  down  to  the  sta- 
tion In  a  body  to  meet  me  In  one  of  those  long 
vehicles  with  seats  down  the  sides — sllly-looking 
men  In  coloured  blazers  and  girls  with  no  hats, 
all  making  a  hullabaloo  of  welcome.  "We  are 
quite  a  small  party,"  Mrs.  Beverly-Jones  had 
written.  Small!  Great  heavens,  what  would 
they  call  a  large  one?  And  even  those  at  the 
station  turned  out  to  be  only  half  of  them. 
There  were  just  as  many  more  all  lined  up  on 
the  piazza  of  the  house  as  we  drove  up,  all 
waving  a  fool  welcome  with  tennis  rackets  and 
golf  clubs. 

Small  party,  indeed  I  Why,  after  six  days 
there  are  still  some  of  the  Idiots  whose  names 
I  haven't  got  straight!  That  fool  with  the 
fluffy  mustache,  which  Is  he?  And  that  jackass 
that  made  the  salad  at  the  picnic  yesterday,  Is 
8i 


Frenzied  Fiction 


,he  the  brother  of  the  woman  with  the  guitar, 
or  who? 

But  what  I  mean  is,  there  is  something  in  that 
sort  of  noisy  welcome  that  puts  me  to  the  bad 
at  the  start.  It  always  does.  A  group  of 
strangers  all  laughing  together  and  with  a  set 
of  catchwords  and  jokes  all  their  own,  always 
throws  me  into  a  fit  of  sadness,  deeper  than 
words.  I  had  thought  when  Mrs.  Beverly- 
Jones  said  a  small  party,  she  really  meant  small. 
I  had  had  a  mental  picture  of  a  few  sad  people, 
greeting  me  very  quietly  and  gently,  and  of  my- 
self, quiet,  too,  but  cheerful — somehow  lifting 
them  up,  with  no  great  effort,  by  my  mere  pres- 
ence. 

Somehow  from  the  very  first  I  could  feel  that 
Beverly-Jones  was  disappointed  in  me.  He 
said  nothing.  But  I  knew  it.  On  that  first  aft- 
ernoon, between  my  arrival  and  evening  din- 
ner, he  took  me  about  his  place,  to  show  it  to 
me.  I  wish  that  at  some  proper  time  I  had 
learned  just  what  it  is  that  you  say  when  a  man 
shows  you  about  his  place.  I  never  knew  be- 
fore how  deficient  I  am  in  it.  I  am  all  right  to 
82 


The  Sorrows  of  a  Summer  Guest 

be  shown  an  iron-and-steel  plant,  or  a  soda- 
water  factory,  or  anything  really  wonderful,  but 
being  shown  a  house  and  grounds  and  trees, 
things  that  I  have  seen  all  my  life,  leaves  me 
absolutely  silent. 

"These  big  gates,"  said  Beverly-Jones,  'Ve 
only  put  up  this  year."  I  said,  "Oh."  That 
was  all.  Why  shouldn't  they  put  them  up  this 
year?  I  didn't  care  if  they'd  put  them  up  this 
year  or  a  thousand  years  ago.  "We  had  quite 
a  struggle,"  he  continued,  "before  we  finally 
decided  on  sandstone."  I  said :  "You  did,  eh?" 
There  seem^ed  nothing  more  to  say;  I  didn't 
know  what  sort  of  struggle  he  meant,  or  who 
fought  who;  and  personally  sandstone  or  soap- 
stone  or  any  other  stone  is  all  the  same  to  me. 

"This  lawn,"  said  Beverly-Jones,  "we  laid 
down  the  first  year  we  were  here."  I  answered 
nothing.  He  looked  me  right  in  the  face  as  he 
said  it  and  I  looked  straight  back  at  him,  but 
I  saw  no  reason  to  challenge  his  statement. 

"The  geraniums  along  the  border,"  he  went 
on,  "are  rather  an  experiment.  They're 
Dutch."  I  looked  fixedly  at  the  geraniums  but 
83 


Frenzied  Fiction 


never  said  a  word.  They  were  Dutch;  all 
right,  why  not?  They  were  an  experiment. 
Very  good ;  let  them  be  so.  I  know  nothing  in 
particular  to  say  about  a  Dutch  experiment. 

I  could  feel  that  Beverly-Jones  grew  de- 
pressed as  he  showed  me  round.  I  was  sorry 
for  him,  but  unable  to  help.  I  realised  that 
there  were  certain  sections  of  my  education  that 
had  been  neglected.  How  to  be  shown  things 
and  make  appropriate  comments  seems  to  be  an 
art  in  itself.  I  don't  possess  it.  It  is  not  likely 
now,  as  I  look  at  this  pond,  that  I  ever  shall. 

Yet  how  simple  a  thing  it  seems  when  done 
by  others.  I  saw  the  difference  at  once  the  very 
next  day,  the  second  day  of  my  visit,  v/hen  Bev- 
erly-Jones took  round  young  Poppleton,  the 
man  that  I  mentioned  above  who  will  presently 
give  a  Swiss  yodel  from  a  clump  of  laurel  bushes 
tg-indicate  that  the  day's  fun  has  begun. 

Poppleton  I  had  known  before,  slightly.  I 
used  to  see  him  at  the  club.  In  club  surround- 
ings he  always  struck  me  as  an  ineffable  young 
ass,  loud  and  talkative  and  perpetually  break- 
ing the  silence  rules.     Yet  I  have  to  admit  that 

84 


The  Sorrows  of  a  Summer  Guest 

in  his  summer  flannels  and  with  a  straw  hat  on 
he  can  do  things  that  I  can't. 

"These  big  gates,"  began  Beverly-Jones  as  he 
showed  Poppleton  round  the  place  with  me 
trailing  beside  them,  "we  only  put  up  this  year." 

Poppleton,  who  has  a  summer  place  of  his 
own,  looked  at  the  gates  very  critically.  "Now, 
do  you  know  what  /V  have  done  with  those 
gates,  if  they  were  mine?"  he  said. 

"No,"  said  Beverly-Jones. 

"I'd  have  set  them  two  feet  wider  apart; 
they're  too  narrow,  old  chap,  too  narrow." 

Poppleton  shook  his  head  sadly  at  the  gates. 
"We  had  quite  a  struggle,"  said  Beverly-Jones, 
"before  we  finally  decided  on  sandstone." 

I  realised  that  he  had  one  and  the  same  line 
of  talk  that  he  always  used.  I  resented  it.  No 
wonder  it  was  easy  for  him. 

"Great  mistake,"  said  Poppleton.  "Too 
soft.  Look  at  this," — here  he  picked  up  a  big 
stone  and  began  pounding  at  the  gate-post 
"See  how  easily  it  chips!  Smashes  right  of?. 
Look  at  that — the  whole  corner  knocks  right 
oi^,  see!" 

85 


Frenzied  Fiction 


Beverly-Jones  entered  no  protest.  I  began 
to  see  that  there  is  a  sort  of  understanding,  a 
kind  of  freemasonry,  among  men  who  have 
summer  places.  One  shows  his  things;  the 
other  runs  them  down,  and  smashes  them.  This 
makes  the  whole  thing  easy  at  once. 

Beverly-Jones  showed  his  lawn.  "Your  turf 
is  all  wrong,  old  boy,"  said  Poppleton.  "Look! 
it  has  no  body  to  it.  See,  I  can  kick  holes  in  it 
with  my  heel.  Look  at  that,  and  that!  If  I 
had  on  stronger  boots  I  could  kick  this  lawn 
all  to  pieces." 

"These  geraniums  along  the  border,"  said 
Beverly-Jones,  "are  rather  an  experiment. 
TheyVe  Dutch." 

"But  my  dear  fellow,"  said  Poppleton, 
"you've  got  them  set  in  wrongly.  They  ought 
to  slope  from  the  sun  you  know,  never  to  it. 
Wait  a  bit," — here  he  picked  up  a  spade  that 
was  lying  where  a  gardener  had  been  working. 
"I'll  throw  a  few  out — notice  how  easily  they 
come  up — ah! — that  fellow  broke;  they're  apt 
to — there,  I  won't  bother  to  reset  them,  but  tell 
86 


The  Sorrows  of  a  Summer  Guest 

your  man  to  slope  them  over  from  the  sun. 
That's  the  Idea." 

Beverly-Jones  showed  his  new  boathouse 
next  and  Poppleton  knocked  a  hole  In  the  side 
with  a  hammer  to  show  that  the  lumber  was  too 
thin.  *'If  that  were  my  boathouse,"  he  said, 
*'rd  rip  the  outside  clean  off  It  and  use  shingle 
and  stucco." 

It  was,  I  noticed,  Poppleton's  plan  first  to 
Imagine  Beverly-Jones's  things  his  own,  and 
then  to  smash  them,  and  then  give  them  back 
smashed  to  Beverly-Jones.  This  seemed  to 
please  them  both.  Apparently  It  Is  a  well- 
understood  method  of  entertaining  a  guest  and 
being  entertained.  Beverly-Jones  and  Popple- 
ton, after  an  hour  or  so  of  It,  were  delighted 
with  one  another. 

Yet  somehow,  when  I  tried  It  myself,  It  failed 
to  work. 

"Do  you  know  what  I  would  do  with  that 
cedar  summer-house  If  It  was  mine?"  I  asked 
my  host  the  next  day. 

**No,"  he  said. 

"I'd  knock  the  thing  down  and  burn  It,"  I 

87 


Frenzied  Fiction 


answered.  But  I  think  I  must  have  said  it  too 
fiercely.  Beverly-Jones  looked  hurt  and  said 
nothing. 

Not  that  these  people  are  not  doing  all  theyj 
can  for  me.  I  know  that.  I  admit  it.  If  I 
should  meet  my  end  here  and  if — ^to  put  the 
thing  straight  out — my  lifeless  body  is  found 
floating  on  the  surface  of  this  pond,  I  should 
like  there  to  be  documentary  evidence  of  that 
much.  They  are  trying  their  best.  "This  is 
Liberty  Hall,"  Mrs.  Beverly-Jones  said  to  me 
on  the  first  day  of  my  visit.  ''We  want  you  to 
feel  that  you  are  to  do  absolutely  as  you  like !" 

Absolutely  as  I  like !  How  little  they  know 
me.  I  should  like  to  have  answered:  "Madam, 
I  have  now  reached  a  time  of  life  when  human 
society  at  breakfast  is  impossible  to  me;  when 
any  conversation  prior  to  eleven  a.m.  must  be 
considered  out  of  the  question;  when  I  prefer 
to  eat  my  meals  in  quiet,  or  with  only  such  mild 
hilarity  as  can  be  got  from  a  comic  paper;  when 
I  can  no  longer  wear  nankeen  pants  and  a  col- 
oured blazer  without  a  sense  of  personal  indig- 
nity; when  I  can  no  longer  leap  and  play  in  the 


The  Sorrows  of  a  Summer  Chiest 

water  like  a  young  fish;  when  I  do  not  yodel, 
cannot  sing  and,  to  my  regret,  dance  even  worse 
than  I  did  when  young;  and  when  the  mood  of 
mirth  and  hilarity  comes  to  me  only  as  a  rare 
visitant — shall  we  say  at  a  burlesque  perform- 
ance— and  never  as  a  daily  part  of  my  existence. 
Madam,  I  am  unfit  to  be  a  summer  guest.  If 
this  is  Liberty  Hall  indeed,  let  me,  oh,  let  me 
go!" 

Such  is  the  speech  that  I  v/ould  make  if  it 
were  possible.  As  it  is  I  can  only  rehearse  it 
to  myself. 

Indeed,  the  more  I  analyse  it  the  more  im- 
possible it  seems,  for  a  man  of  my  temperament 
at  any  rate,  to  be  a  summer  guest.  These  peo- 
ple, and  I  imagine,  all  other  summer  people, 
seem  to  be  trying  to  live  in  a  perpetual  joke. 
Everything,  all  day,  has  to  be  taken  in  a  mood 
of  uproarious  fun. 

However,  I  can  speak  of  it  all  now  in  quiet 
retrospect  and  without  bitterness.  It  will  soon 
be  over  now.  Indeed,  the  reason  why  I  have 
come  down  at  this  early  hour  to  this  quiet  v/ater 
is  that  things  have  reached  a  crisis.     The  sit- 

89 


Frenzied  Fiction 


uation  has  become  extreme  and  I  must  end  it. 

It  happened  last  night.  Beverly-Jones  took 
me  aside  while  the  others  were  dancing  the  fox- 
trot to  the  victrola  on  the  piazza. 

*'We're  planning  to  have  some  rather  good 
fun  to-morrow  night,"  he  said,  ^'something  that 
will  be  a  good  deal  more  in  your  line  than  a  lot 
of  it,  I'm  afraid,  has  been  up  here.  In  fact, 
my  wife  says  that  this  will  be  the  very  thing 
for  you." 

*'Oh,"  I  said. 

*'WeVe  going  to  get  all  the  people  from  the 
other  houses  over  and  the  girls" — this  term 
Beverly-Jones  uses  to  mean  his  wife  and  her 
friends — "are  going  to  get  up  a  sort  of  enter- 
tainment with  charades  and  things,  all  im- 
promptu, more  or  less,  of  course " 

"Oh,"  I  said.  I  saw  already  what  was  com- 
ing. 

"And  they  want  you  to  act  as  a  sort  of  mas- 
ter-of-ceremonies,  to  make  up  the  gags  and 
introduce  the  different  stunts  and  all  that.  ^I 
was  telHng  the  girls  about  that  afternoon  at 
the  club,  when  you  were  simply  killing  us  all 
90 


The  Sorrows  of  a  Summer  Chiest 

with  those  funny  stories  of  yours,  and  they're 
all  wild  over  it." 

"Wild?"  I  repeated. 

"Yes,  quite  wild  over  it.  They  say  It  will  be 
the  hit  of  the  summer." 

Beverly-Jones  shook  hands  with  great 
warmth  as  we  parted  for  the  night.  I  knew 
that  he  was  thinking  that  my  character  was 
about  to  be  triumphantly  vindicated,  and  that 
he  was  glad  for  my  sake. 

Last  night  I  did  not  sleep.  I  remained  awake 
all  night  thinking  of  the  "entertainment."  In 
my  whole  life  I  have  done  nothing  in  public  ex- 
cept once  when  I  presented  a  walking-stick  to 
the  vice-president  of  our  club  on  the  occasion 
of  his  taking  a  trip  to  Europe.  Even  for  that 
I  used  to  rehearse  to  myself  far  into  the  night 
sentences  that  began:  "This  walking-stick, 
gentlemen,  means  far  more  than  a  mere  walk- 
ing-stick." 

And  now  they  expect  me  to  come  out  as  a 
merry  master-of-ceremonies  before  an  assem- 
bled crowd  of  summer  guests. 

But  never  mind.     It  is  nearly  over  now.     I 

91 


Frenzied  Fiction 


have  come  down  to  this  quiet  water  in  the  early 
morning  to  throw  myself  in.  They  will  find 
me  floating  here  among  the  lilies.  Some  few 
will  understand.  I  can  see  it  written,  as  it  will 
be,  in  the  newspapers. 

*'What  makes  the  sad  fatality  doubly  poig- 
nant is  that  the  unhappy  victim  had  just  entered 
upon  a  holiday  visit  that  was  to  have  been  pro- 
longed throughout  the  whole  month.  Needless 
to  say  he  was  regarded  as  the  life  and  soul  of 
the  pleasant  party  of  hoHday  makers  that  had 
gathered  at  the  delightful  country  home  of  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Beverly-Jones.  Indeed,  on  the  very 
day  of  the  tragedy,  he  was  to  have  taken  a  lead- 
ing part  in  staging  a  merry  performance  of 
charades  and  parlour  entertainments — a  thing 
for  which  his  genial  talents  and  overflowing 
high  spirits  rendered  him  especially  fit." 

When  they  read  that,  those  who  know  me 
best  will  understand  how  and  why  I  died.  *'He 
had  still  over  three  weeks  to  stay  there,"  they 
will  say;  *'He  was  to  act  as  the  stage  manager 

02 


The  Sorrows  of  a  Summer  Guest 

of  charades."     They  will  shake  their  heads. 
They  will  understand. 

But  what  is  this?  I  raise  my  eyes  from  the 
paper  and  I  see  Beverly-Jones  hurriedly  ap- 
proaching from  the  house.  He  is  hastily 
dressed,  with  flannel  trousers  and  a  dressing- 
gown.  His  face  looks  grave.  Something  has 
happened.  Thank  God,  something  has  hap- 
pened. Some  accident!  Some  tragedy! 
Something  to  prevent  the  charades! 

I  write  these  last  few  lines  on  a  fast  train  that 
is  carrying  me  back  to  New  York,  a  cool,  com- 
fortable train,  with  a  deserted  club-car  where 
I  can  sit  in  a  leather  armchair,  with  my  feet  up 
on  another,  smoking,  silent,  and  at  peace. 

Villages,  farms  and  summer  places  are  fly- 
ing by.  Let  them  fly.  I,  too,  am  flying — 
back  to  the  rest  and  quiet  of  the  city. 

^'Old  man,"  Beverly-Jones  said,  as  he  laid 
his  hand  on  mine  very  kindly  (he  is  a  decent 
fellow,  after  all,  is  Jones),  "they're  calling  you 
by  long-distance  from  New  York." 
93 


Frenzied  Fiction 


*'What  is  It?"  I  asked,  or  tried  to  gasp. 

"It's  bad  news,  old  chap — fire  in  your  office 
last  evening — I'm  afraid  a  lot  of  your  private 
papers  were  burned.  Robinson — that's  your 
senior  clerk,  Isn't  it? — seems  to  have  been  on 
the  spot  trying  to  save  things.  He's  badly 
singed  about  the  face  and  hands.  I'm  afraid 
you  must  go  at  once." 

"Yes,  yes,"  I  said,  "at  once." 

"I  know.  I've  told  the  man  to  get  the  trap 
ready  right  away.  You've  just  time  to  catch 
the  seven-ten.     Come  along." 

"Right,"  I  said.  I  kept  my  face  as  well  as 
I  could,  trying  to  hide  my  exultation.  The  of- 
fice burnt !  Fine !  Robinson  singed !  Glori- 
ous! I  hurriedly  packed  my  things  and  whis- 
pered to  Beverly-Jones  farewell  messages  for 
the  sleeping  household.  I  never  felt  so  jolly 
and  facetious  in  my  life.  I  could  feel  that 
Beverly-Jones  was  admiring  the  spirit  and 
pluck  with  which  I  took  my  misfortune.  Later 
on  he  would  tell  them  all  about  ii:. 

The  trap  ready!  Hoorah!  Good-by,  old 
man!  Hoorah!  All  right.  I'll  telegraph 
94 


Tlie  Sorrows  of  a  Summer  Guest 

,  .  ,  right  you  are,  good-by  .  .  .  hip,  hip, 
hoorah !  .  .  .  Here  we  are !  Train  right  on 
time.  .  .  .  Just  these  two  bags,  porter,  and 
there's  a  dollar  for  you.  What  merry,  merry 
fellp-ws^ese  darky  porters  are,  anyway! 

And  so  here  I  am  in  the  train,  safe  bound 
for  home  and  the  summer  quiet  of  my  club. 

Well  done  for  Robinson !  I  was  afraid  that 
It  had  missed  fire,  or  that  my  message  to  him 
had  gone  wrong.  It  was  on  the  second  day  of 
my  visit  that  I  sent  word  to  him  to  Invent  an 
accident — something,  anything — to  call  me 
back.  I  thought  the  message  had  failed.  I 
had  lost  hope.  But  It  Is  all  right  now,  though 
he  certainly  pitched  the  note  pretty  high. 

Of  course  I  can't  let  the  Beverly-Joneses 
know  that  It  was  a  put-up  job.  I  must  set  fire 
to  the  office  as  soon  as  I  get  back.  But  it's 
worth  it.  And  I'll  have  to  singe  Robinson 
about  the  face  and  hands.  But  it's  worth  that, 
too! 


95 


VI,— To  Nature  and  Back  Asain 

IT  was  probably  owing  to  the  fact  that  my 
place  of  lodgment  in  New  York  over- 
looked the  waving  trees  of  Central  Park 
that  I  was  consumed,  all  summer  through, 
with  a  great  longing  for  the  woods.     To 
me,  as  a  lover  of  Nature,  the  waving  of  a  tree 
conveys  thoughts  which  are  never  conveyed  to 
me  except  by  seeing  a  tree  wave. 

This  longing  grew  upon  me.  I  became  rest- 
less with  it.  In  the  daytime  I  dreamed  over 
my  work.  At  night  my  sleep  was  broken  and 
restless.  At  times  I  would  even  wander  forth 
at  night  into  the  park,  and  there,  deep  in  the 
night  shadow  of  the  trees,  Imagine  myself  alone 
in  the  recesses  of  the  dark  woods  remote  from 
the  toil  and  fret  of  our  distracted  civilisation. 
This  increasing  feeling  culminated  in  the  re- 
solve which  becomes  the  subject  of  this  narra- 
tive.    The  thought  came  to  me  suddenly  one 

96 


To  Nature  and  Bach  Again 

night.  I  woke  from  my  sleep  with  a  plan  fully 
matured  In  my  mind.  It  was  this:  I  would, 
for  one  month,  cast  off  all  the  travail  and  cares 
of  civilised  life  and  become  again  the  wild  man 
of  the  woods  that  Nature  made  me.  My  plan 
was  to  go  to  the  edge  of  the  great  woods,  some- 
where In  New  England,  divest  myself  of  my 
clothes — except  only  my  union  suit — crawl  into 
the  woods,  stay  there  a  month  and  then  crawl 
out  again.  To  a  trained  woodsman  and  crawler 
like  myself  the  thing  was  simplicity  Itself.  For 
food  I  knew  that  I  could  rely  on  berries,  roots, 
shoots,  mosses,  mushrooms,  fungi,  bungi — in 
fact  the  whole  of  Nature's  ample  storehouse; 
for  my  drink,  the  running  brook  and  the  quiet 
pool;  and  for  my  companions  the  twittering 
chipmunk,  the  chickadee,  the  chocktaw,  the 
choo-choo,  the  chow-chow,  and  the  hundred  and 
one  Inhabitants  of  the  forgotten  glade  and  the 
tangled  thicket. 

Fortunately  for  me  my  resolve  came  to  me 
upon  the  last  day  In  August.  The  month  of 
September  was  my  vacation.  My  time  was  my 
own.     I  was  free  to  go. 

97 


Frenzied  Fiction 


On  my  rising  in  the  morning  my  preparations 
were  soon  made;  or  rather,  there  were  practi- 
cally no  preparations  to  make.  I  had  but  to 
supply  myself  with  a  camera,  my  one  necessity 
in  the  woods,  and  to  say  good-bye  to  my  friends. 
Even  this  last  ordeal  I  wished  to  make  as  brief 
as  possible.  I  had  no  wish  to  arouse  their  anxi- 
ety over  the  dangerous,  perhaps  foolhardy, 
project  that  I  had  in  mind.  I  wished,  as  far 
as  possible,  to  say  good-bye  in  such  a  way  as  to 
allay  the  very  natural  fears  which  my  undertak- 
ing would  excite  in  the  minds  of  my  friends. 

From  myself,  although  trained  in  the  craft 
of  the  woods,  I  could  not  conceal  the  danger 
that  I  incurred.  Yet  the  danger  was  almost 
forgotten  in  the  extraordinary  and  novel  in- 
terest that  attached  to  the  experiment.  Would 
it  prove  possible  for  a  man,  unaided  by  our  civ- 
ilised arts  and  industries,  to  maintain  himself 
naked  (except  for  his  union  suit)  in  the  heart 
of  the  woods?  Could  he  do  it,  or  could  he 
not?     And  if  he  couldn't,  what  then? 

But  this  last  thought  I  put  from  me.  Time 
alone  could  answer  the  question. 

98 


To  Nature  and  Bach  Again 

As  in  duty  bound,  I  went  first  to  the  place  of 
business  where  I  am  employed,  to  shake  hands 
and  say  good-bye  to  my  employer. 

*'I  am  going,"  I  said,  *'to  spend  a  month 
naked  alone  in  the  woods." 

He  looked  up  from  his  desk  with  genial  kind- 
liness. 

'That's  right,"  he  said,  *'get  a  good  rest." 

*'My  plan  is,"  I  added,  "to  live  on  berries 
and  funguses." 

"Fine,"  he  answered.  "Well,  have  a  good 
time,  old  man — good-bye." 

Then  I  dropped  in  casually  upon  one  of  my 
friends.  "Well,"  I  said,  "Fm  off  to  New  Eng- 
land to  spend  a  month  naked." 

"Nantucket,"  he  said,  "or  Newport?" 
"No,"  I  answered,  speaking  as  lightly  as  I 
could.  "I'm  going  into  the  woods  and  stay 
there  naked  for  a  month." 

"Oh,  yes,"  he  said.  "I  see.  Well,  good- 
bye, old  chap — see  you  when  you  get  back." 

After  that  I  called  upon  two  or  three  other 
men  to  say  a  brief  word  of  farewell.  I  could 
not  help  feeling  slightly  nettled,  I  must  con- 
99 


Frenzied  Fiction 


fess,  at  the  very  casual  way  in  which  they 
seemed  to  take  my  announcement.  "Oh,  yes," 
they  said,  "naked  in  the  woods,  eh?  Well,  ta- 
ta  till  you  get  back." 

Here  was  a  man  about  to  risk  his  life — for 
there  was  no  denying  the  fact — in  a  great  so- 
ciological experiment,  yet  they  received  the  an- 
nouncement with  absolute  unconcern.  It  of- 
fered one  more  assurance,  had  I  needed  it,  of 
the  degenerate  state  of  the  civihsation  upon 
which  I  was  turning  my  back. 

On  my  way  to  the  train  I  happened  to  run 
into  a  newspaper  reporter  with  whom  I  have 
some  acquaintance. 

"I'm  just  off,"  I  said,  "to  New  England  to 
spend  a  month  naked  (at  least  naked  all  but  my 
union  suit)  in  the  woods;  no  doubt  you'll  like 
a  few  details  about  it  for  your  paper." 

"Thanks,  old  man,"  he  said,  "we've  pretty 
well  given  up  running  that  nature  stuff.  We 
couldn't  do  anything  with  it — unless,  of  course, 
anything  happens  to  you.  Then  we'd  be  glad 
to  give  you  some  space." 

Several  of  my  friends  had  at  least  the  decency 

100 


To  Nature  and  Bach  uigtiln 

to  see  me  off  on  the  train.  One,  and  one  alone 
accompanied  me  on  the  long  night-ride  to  New 
England  in  order  that  he  might  bring  back 
my  clothes,  my  watch,  and  other  possessions 
from  the  point  where  I  should  enter  the  woods, 
together  with  such  few  messages  of  farewell  as 
I  might  scribble  at  the  last  moment. 

It  was  early  morning  when  we  arrived  at  the 
wayside  station  where  we  were  to  alight. 
From  here  we  walked  to  the  edge  of  the  woods. 
Arrived  at  this  point  we  halted.  I  took  off  my 
clothes,  with  the  exception  of  my  union  suit. 
Then,  taking  a  pot  of  brown  stain  from  my 
valise,  I  proceeded  to  dye  my  face  and  hands 
and  my  union  suit  itself  a  deep  butternut  brown. 

"What's  that  for?"  asked  my  friend. 

"For  protection,"  I  answered.  "Don't  you 
know  that  all  animals  are  protected  by  their 
peculiar  markings  that  render  them  invisible? 
The  caterpillar  looks  like  the  leaf  it  eats  from; 
the  scales  of  the  fish  counterfeit  the  glistening 
water  of  the  brook;  the  bear  and  the  'possum 
are  colored  like  the  tree-trunks  on  which  they 

lOI 


Frenzied  Fiction 


climb.  There!"  I  added,  as  I  concluded  my 
task,  "I  am  now  invisible." 

"Gee!"  said  my  friend.  I  handed  him  back 
the  valise  and  the  empty  paintpot,  dropped  to 
my  hands  and  knees  (my  camera  slung  about 
my  neck)  and  proceeded  to  crawl  into  the  bush. 
My  friend  stood  watching  me. 

"Why  don't  you  stand  up  and  walk?"  I  heard 
him  call. 

I  turned  half  round  and  growled  at  him. 
Then  I  plunged  deeper  Into  the  brush,  growling 
as  I  went. 

After  ten  minutes'  active  crawling  I  found 
myself  in  the  heart  of  the  forest.  It  reached 
all  about  me  on  every  side  for  hundreds  of 
miles.  All  around  me  was  the  unbroken  still- 
ness of  the  woods.  Not  a  sound  reached  my 
ear  save  the  twittering  of  a  squirrel,  or  squlrl, 
in  the  branches  high  above  my  head,  or  the 
far-distant  call  of  a  loon  hovering  over  some 
woodland  lake. 

I  judged  that  I  had  reached  a  spot  suitable 
for  my  habitation. 

My  first  care  was  to  make  a  lire.     Difficult 

102 


To  Nature  and  Back  Again 

though  it  might  appear  to  the  degenerate  dwell- 
er of  the  city  to  do  this,  to  the  trained  woods- 
man, such  as  I  had  now  become,  it  is  noth- 
ing. I  selected  a  dry  stick,  rubbed  it  vigor- 
ously against  my  hind  leg,  and  in  a  few  mo- 
ments it  broke  into  a  generous  blaze.  Half  an 
hour  later  I  was  sitting  beside  a  glowing  fire 
of  twigs  discussing  with  great  gusto  an  appe- 
tising mess  of  boiled  grass  and  fungi  cooked 
in  a  hollow  stone. 

I  ate  my  fill,  not  pausing  till  I  was  full,  care- 
less, as  the  natural  man  ever  is,  of  the  morrov/. 
Then,  stretched  out  upon  the  pine-needles  at 
the  foot  of  a  great  tree,  I  lay  in  drowsy  con- 
tentment listening  to  the  song  of  the  birds,  the 
hum  of  the  myriad  insects  and  the  strident  note 
of  the  squirrel  high  above  me.  At  times  I 
would  give  utterance  to  the  soft  answering  call, 
known  to  every  woodsman,  that  is  part  of  the 
freemasonry  of  animal  speech.  As  I  lay  thus 
I  would  not  have  exchanged  places  with  the 
pale  dweller  in  the  city  for  all  the  wealth  in 
the  world.  Here  I  lay  remote  from  the  world, 
103 


Frenzied  Fiction 


happy,  full  of  grass,  listening  to  the  crooning 
of  the  birds. 

But  the  mood  of  inaction  and  reflection  can- 
not last,  even  with  the  lover  of  Nature.  It 
was  time  to  be  up  and  doing.  Much  lay  before 
me  to  be  done  before  the  setting  of  the  sun 
should  bring  with  it,  as  I  fully  expected  it 
would,  darkness.  Before  night  fell  I  must  build 
a  house,  make  myself  a  suit  of  clothes,  lay  in 
a  store  of  nuts,  and  in  short  prepare  myself 
for  the  oncoming  of  winter,  which,  in  the  bush, 
may  come  on  at  any  time  in  the  summer. 

I  rose  briskly  from  the  ground  to  my  hands 
and  knees  and  set  myself  to  the  building  of  my 
house.  The  method  that  I  intended  to  follow 
here  was  merely  that  which  Nature  has  long 
since  taught  to  the  beaver  and  which,  moreover, 
is  known  and  practised  by  the  gauchos  of  the 
pampas,  by  the  googoos  of  Rhodesia  and  by 
many  other  tribes.  I  had  but  to  select  a  suit- 
able growth  of  trees  and  gnaw  them  down  with 
my  teeth,  taking  care  so  to  gnaw  them  that  each 
should  fall  into  the  place  appointed  for  it  in 
the  building.  The  sides,  once  erected  in  this 
104 


To  Nature  and  Bach  Again 

fashion,  another  row  of  trees,  properly  situated, 
Is  gnawed  down  to  fall  crosswise  as  the  roof. 

I  set  myself  briskly  to  work  and  In  half  an 
hour  had  already  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  my 
habitation  rising  Into  shape.  I  was  still  gnaw- 
ing with  unabated  energy  when  I  was  Interrupt- 
ed by  a  low  growling  in  the  underbrush.  With 
animal  caution  I  shrank  behind  a  tree,  growling 
in  return.  I  could  see  something  moving  In  the 
bushes,  evidently  an  animal  of  large  size.  From 
its  snarl  I  judged  it  to  be  a  bear.  I  could  hear 
it  moving  nearer  to  me.  It  was  about  to  attack 
me.  A  savage  joy  thrilled  through  me  at  the 
thought,  while  my  union  suit  bristled  with  rage 
from  head  to  foot  as  I  emitted  growl  after 
growl  of  defiance.  I  bared  my  teeth  to  the 
gums,  snarling,  and  lashed  my  flank  with  my 
hind  foot.  Eagerly  I  watched  for  the  onrush 
of  the  bear.  In  savage  combat  who  strikes 
first  wins.  It  was  my  idea,  as  soon  as  the  bear 
should  appear,  to  bite  oi^  its  front  legs  one 
after  the  other.  This  Initial  advantage  once 
gained  I  had  no  doubt  of  ultimate  victory. 

The  bushes  parted.  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  a 
105 


Frenzied  Fiction 


long  brown  body  and  a  hairy  head.  Then  the 
creature  reared  up,  breasting  itself  against  a 
log,  full  in  front  of  me.  Great  heavens!  It 
was  not  a  bear  at  all.     It  was  a  man. 

He  was  dressed,  as  I  was,  in  a  union  suit,  and 
his  face  and  hands,  like  mine,  were  stained  a 
butternut  brown.  His  hair  was  long  and 
matted  and  two  weeks'  stubble  of  beard  was 
on  his  face. 

For  a  minute  we  both  glared  at  one  another, 
still  growling.  Then  the  man  rose  up  to  a 
standing  position  with  a  muttered  exclamation 
of  disgust. 

''Ah,  cut  it  out,''  he  said.  "Let's  talk  Eng- 
lish." 

He  walked  over  toward  me  and  sat  down  up- 
on a  log  in  an  attitude  that  seemed  to  convey 
the  same  disgust  as  the  expression  of  his  fea- 
tures.   Then  he  looked  round  about  him. 

*'What  are  you  doing?"  he  said. 

*'Building  a  house,"  I  answered. 

*'I  know,"  he  said  with  a  nod.  "What  are 
you  here  for?" 

"Why,"  I  explained,  "my  plan  is  this:  I  want 
io6 


To  Nature  and  Back  Again 

to  see  whether  a  man  can  come  out  here  in  the 
woods,  naked,  with  no  aid  but  that  of  his  own 
hands  and  his  own  ingenuity  and '^ 

"Yes,  yes,  I  know,"  interrupted  the  discon- 
solate man — "earn  himself  a  hvelihood  In  the 
wilderness,  live  as  the  cave-man  lived,  care-free 
and  far  from  the  curse  of  civilisation!" 

"That's  it.  That  was  my  idea,"  I  said,  my 
enthusiasm  rekindling  as  I  spoke.  "That's 
what  I'm  doing;  my  food  is  to  be  the  rude 
grass  and  the  roots  that  Nature  furnishes  for 
her  children,  and  for  my  drink " 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  interrupted  again  with  impa- 
tience, "for  your  drink  the  running  rill,  for 
your  bed  the  sweet  couch  of  hemlock,  and  for 
your  canopy  the  open  sky  lit  with  the  soft  stars 
in  the  deep-purple  vault  of  the  dewy  night.  I 
know." 

"Great  heavens,  man!"  I  exclaimed. 
"That's  my  idea  exactly.  In  fact,  those  are 
my  very  phrases.  How  could  you  have  guessed 
it?" 

He  made  a  gesture  with  his  hand  to  indicate 
weariness  and  disillusionment. 
107 


Frenzied  Fiction 


"Pshaw!"  he  said,  "I  know  it  because  IVe 
been  doing  it.  IVe  been  here  a  fortnight  now 
on  this  open-air,  life-in-the-woods  game.  Well, 
I'm  sick  of  it!    This  last  lets  me  out." 

"What  last?"  I  asked. 

"Why,  meeting  you.  Do  you  realise  that 
you  are  the  nineteenth  man  that  I've  met  in  the 
last  three  days  running  about  naked  in  the 
woods?  They're  all  doing  it.  The  woods  are 
full  of  them." 

"You  don't  say  so!"  I  gasped. 

"Fact.  Wherever  you  go  in  the  bush  you 
iind  naked  men  all  working  out  this  same  blast- 
ed old  experiment.  Why,  when  you  get  a  little 
further  in  you'll  see  signs  up,  NAKED  MEN 
NOT  ALLOWED  IN  THIS  BUSH,  and 
NAKED  MEN  KEEP  OFF,  and  GENTLE- 
MEN WHO  ARE  NAKED  WILL  KINDLY 
KEEP  TO  THE  HIGH  ROAD,  and  a  lot  of 
things  like  that.  You  must  have  come  in  at  a 
wrong  place  or  you'd  have  noticed  the  little 
shanties  that  they  have  now  at  the  edge  of  the 
New  England  bush  with  signs  up:  UNION 
SUITS  BOUGHT  AND  SOLD,  CAMERAS 
io8 


To  Nature  and  Bach  Again 

FOR    SALE    OR   TO    RENT,    HIGHEST 
PRICE  FOR  CAST-OFF  CLOTHING,  and 

all  that  sort  of  thing." 

"No,"  I  said.     "I  saw  nothing." 

"Well,  you  look  when  you  go  back.  As  for 
me,  I'm  done  with  it.  The  thing's  worked  out. 
I'm  going  back  to  the  city  to  see  whether  I 
can't,  right  there  in  the  heart  of  the  city,  earn 
myself  a  livelihood  with  my  unaided  hands  and 
brains.  That's  the  real  problem;  no  more  bum- 
ming on  the  animals  for  me.  This  bush  busi- 
ness is  too  easy.    Well,  good-bye;  I'm  off." 

"But  stop  a  minute,"  I  said.  "How  is  it  that 
if  what  you  say  is  true,  I  haven't  seen  or  heard 
anybody  in  the  bush,  and  I've  been  here  since 
the  middle  of  the  morning?" 

"Nonsense,"  the  man  answered.  "They  were 
probably  all  round  you  but  you  didn't  recognise 
them." 

"No,  no.  It's  not  possible.  I  lay  here  dream- 
ing beneath  a  tree  and  there  wasn't  a  sound, 
except  the  twittering  of  a  squirrel  and,  far 
away,  the  cry  of  a  lake-loon,  nothing  else." 

"Exactly,  the  twittering  of  a  squirrel !  That 
109 


Frenzied  Fiction 


was  some  feller  up  the  tree  twittering  to  beat 
the  band  to  let  on  that  he  was  a  squirrel,  and 
no  doubt  some  other  feller  calling  out  like  a 
loon  over  near  the  lake.  I  suppose  you  gave 
them  the  answering  cry?" 

*'I  did,"  I  said.  "I  gave  that  low  guttural 
note  which " 

^'Precisely — which  is  the  universal  greeting 
in  the  freemasonry  of  animal  speech.  I  see 
youVe  got  it  all  down  pat.  Well,  good-bye 
again.  I'm  off.  Oh,  don't  bother  to  growl, 
please.    I'm  sick  of  that  line  of  stuff." 

"Good-bye,"  I  said.  He  slid  through  the 
bushes  and  disappeared.  I  sat  where  I  was, 
musing,  my  work  interrupted,  a  mood  of  bit- 
ter disillusionment  heavy  upon  me.  So  I  sat, 
it  may  have  been  for  hours. 

In  the  far  distance  I  could  hear  the  faint  cry 
of  a  bittern  in  some  lonely  marsh. 

"Now,  who  the  deuce  is  making  that  noise," 
I  muttered;  "some  silly  fool,  I  suppose,  trying 
to  think  he's  a  waterfowl.    Cut  it  out !" 

Long  I  lay,  my  dream  of  the  woods  shat- 
tered, wondering  what  to  do. 
no 


To  Nature  and  Back  Again 

Then  suddenly  there  came  to  my  ear  the  loud 
sound  of  voices,  human  voices,  strident  and 
eager,  with  nothing  of  the  animal  growl  in 
them. 

"He's  in  there.  I  seen  him!"  I  heard  some 
one  call. 

Rapidly  I  dived  sideways  into  the  under- 
brush, my  animal  Instinct  strong  upon  me  again, 
growling  as  I  went.  Instinctively  I  knew  that 
it  was  I  that  they  were  after.  All  the  animal 
joy  of  being  hunted  came  over  me.  My  union 
suit  stood  up  on  end  with  mingled  fear  and 
rage. 

As  fast  as  I  could  I  retreated  Into  the  wood. 
Yet  somehow,  as  I  moved,  the  wood,  instead 
of  growing  denser  seemed  to  thin  out.  I 
crouched  low,  still  growling  and  endeavouring 
to  bury  myself  in  the  thicket.  I  was  filled  with 
a  wild  sense  of  exhilaration  such  as  any  lover 
of  the  wild  life  would  feel  at  the  knowledge 
that  he  is  being  chased,  that  some  one  is  after 
him,  that  some  one  is  perhaps  just  a  few  feet 
behind  him,  waiting  to  stick  a  pitchfork  Into 
him  as  he  runs.  There  is  no  ecstasy  like  this. 
Ill 


Frenzied  Fiction 


Then  I  realised  that  my  pursuers  had  closed 
in  on  me.    I  was  surrounded  on  all  sides. 

The  woods  had  somehow  grown  thin. 
They  were  like  the  mere  shrubbery  of  a  park 
— It  might  be  of  Central  Park  itself.  I  could 
hear  among  the  deeper  tones  of  men  the  shrill 
voices  of  boys.  "There  he  is,"  one  cried,  *'go- 
ing  through  them  bushes !  Look  at  him  hump- 
ing himself  I"  *'What  is  it,  what's  the  sport?" 
another  called.  *'Some  crazy  guy  loose  in  the 
park  in  his  underclothes  and  the  cops  after  him." 

Then  they  closed  In  on  me.  I  recognised 
the  blue  suits  of  the  police  force  and  their  short 
clubs.  In  a  few  minutes  I  was  dragged  out  of 
the  shrubbery  and  stood  in  the  open  park  In 
my  pajamas,  wide  awake,  shivering  In  the  chilly 
air  of  early  morning. 

Fortunately  for  me,  It  was  decided  at  the  po- 
lice-court that  sleepwalking  is  not  an  offense 
against  the  law.    I  was  dismissed  with  a  caution. 

My  vacation  Is  still  before  me,  and  I  still 
propose  to  spend  It  naked.  But  I  shall  do  so 
at  Atlantic  City. 

112 


VII— The  Cave  Man  as  He  Is 

THINK  it  likely  that  few  people  besides 
myself  have  ever  actually  seen  and  spoken 
with  a  "cave-man." 

Yet  everybody  nowadays  knows  all 
about  the  cave-man.  The  fifteen-cent  maga- 
zines and  the  new  fiction  have  made  him  a  fa- 
miliar figure.  A  few  years  ago,  it  is  true,  no- 
body had  ever  heard  of  him.  But  lately,  for 
some  reason  or  other,  there  has  been  a  run  on 
the  cave-man.  No  up-to-date  story  is  complete 
without  one  or  two  references  to  him.  The 
hero,  when  the  heroine  slights  him,  is  said  to 
*'feel  for  a  moment  the  wild,  primordial  desire 
of  the  cave-man,  the  longing  to  seize  her,  to 
drag  her  with  him,  to  carry  her  away,  to  make 
her  his."  When  he  takes  her  in  his  arms  it 
is  recorded  that  "all  the  elemental  passion  of 
the  cave-man  surges  through  him."  When  he 
fights,  on  her  behalf,  against  a  dray-man  or  a 
113 


Frenzied  Fiction 


gun-man  or  an  ice-man  or  any  other  compound 
that  makes  up  a  modern  villain,  he  is  said  to 
"feel  all  the  fierce  fighting  joy  of  the  cave- 
man." If  they  kick  him  in  the  ribs,  he  likes  it. 
If  they  beat  him  over  the  head  he  never  feels 
it;  because  he  is,  for  the  moment,  a  cave-man. 
And  the  cave-man  is,  and  is  known  to  be,  quite 
above  sensation. 

The  heroine,  too,  shares  the  same  point  of 
view.  "Take  me,"  she  murmurs  as  she  falls 
into  the  hero's  embrace,  "be  my  cave-man." 
As  she  says  it  there  is,  so  the  writer  assures  us, 
something  of  the  fierce  light  of  the  cave-woman 
In  her  eyes,  the  primordial  woman  to  be  wooed 
and  won  only  by  force. 

So,  like  everybody  else,  I  had,  till  I  saw  him, 
a  great  idea  of  the  cave-man.  I  had  a  clear 
mental  picture  of  him — huge,  brawny,  muscu- 
lar, a  wolfskin  thrown  about  him  and  a  great 
war-club  in  his  hand.  I  knew  him  as  without 
fear,  with  nerves  untouched  by  our  effete  civili- 
sation, fighting,  as  the  beasts  fight,  to  the  death, 
killing  without  pity  and  suffering  without  a 
moan. 

114 


The  Cave  Man  as  He  Is 


It  was  a  picture  that  I  could  not  but  admire. 

I  liked,  too — I  am  free  to  confess  it — his  pe* 
culiar  way  with  women.  His  system  was,  as  I 
understood  it,  to  take  them  by  the  neck  and 
bring  them  along  with  him.  That  was  his 
fierce,  primordial  way  of  *  Vooing"  them.  And 
they  liked  it.  So  at  least  we  are  Informed  by 
a  thousand  credible  authorities.  They  liked  It. 
And  the  modern  woman,  so  we  are  told,  would 
still  like  it  if  only  one  dared  to  try  It  on. 
There's  the  trouble;  if  one  only  dared! 

I  see  lots  of  them — I'll  be  frank  about  It — 
that  I  should  like  to  grab,  to  sling  over  my 
shoulder  and  carry  away  with  me ;  or,  what  Is 
the  same  thing,  allowing  for  modern  conditions, 
have  an  expressman  carry  them.  I  notice  them 
at  Atlantic  City,  I  see  them  on  Fifth  Avenue — = 
yes,  everywhere. 

But  would  they  come?  That's  the  deuce  of 
It.  Would  they  come  right  along,  like  the  cave- 
woman,  merely  biting  off  my  ear  as  they  came, 
or  are  they  degenerate  enough  to  bring  an  ac- 
tion-at-law  against  me.  Indicting  the  express 
company  as  a  party  of  the  second  part? 
115 


Frenzied  Fiction 


Doubts  such  as  these  prevent  me  from  taking 
active  measures.  But  they  leave  me,  as  they 
leave  many  another  man,  preoccupied  and  fas- 
cinated with  the  cave-man. 

One  may  Imagine,  then,  my  extraordinary  in- 
terest In  him  when  I  actually  met  him  In  the 
flesh.  Yet  the  thing  came  about  quite  simply, 
indeed  more  by  accident  than  by  design,  an  ad- 
venture open  to  all. 

It  so  happened  that  I  spent  my  vacation  in 
Kentucky — the  region,  as  everybody  knows,  of 
the  great  caves.  They  extend, — It  Is  a  matter 
of  common  knowledge, — for  hundreds  of 
miles ;  In  some  places  dark  and  sunless  tunnels, 
the  black  silence  broken  only  by  the  dripping  of 
the  water  from  the  roof;  In  other  places  great 
vaults  like  subterranean  temples,  with  vast  stone 
arches  sweeping  to  the  dome,  and  with  deep, 
still  water  of  unfathomed  depth  as  the  floor; 
and  here  and  there  again  they  are  lighted  from 
above  through  rifts  In  the  surface  of  the  earth, 
and  are  dry  and  sand  strewn — fit  for  human 
habitation. 

In  such  caves  as  these,  so  has  the  obstinate 
ii6 


The  Cave  Man  as  He  Is 


legend  run  for  centuries,  there  still  dwell  cave- 
men, the  dwindling  remnant  of  their  race.  And 
here  it  was  that  I  came  across  him. 

I  had  penetrated  into  the  caves  far  beyond 
my  guides.  I  carried  a  revolver  and  had  with 
me  an  electric  lantern,  but  the  increasing  sun- 
light in  the  cave  as  I  went  on  had  rendered  the 
latter  needless. 

There  he  sat,  a  huge  figure,  clad  In  a  great 
wolfskin.  Beside  him  lay  a  great  club.  Across 
his  knee  was  a  spear  round  which  he  was  bind- 
ing sinews  that  tightened  under  his  muscular 
hand.  His  head  was  bent  over  his  task.  His 
matted  hair  had  fallen  over  his  eyes.  He  did 
not  see  me  till  I  was  close  beside  him  on  the 
sanded  floor  of  the  cave. 

I  gave  a  slight  cough.  "Excuse  me!"  I  said. 
The  Cave-man  gave  a  startled  jump.  "My 
goodness,"  he  said,  "you  startled  me!" 

I  could  see  that  he  was  quite  trembling. 

"You  came  along  so  suddenly,"  he  said,  "it 
gave  me  the  jumps."    Then  he  muttered,  more 
to  himself  than  to  me,  "too  much  of  this  darned 
cave-water!     I  must  quit  drinking  it." 
117 


Frenzied  Fiction 


I  sat  down  near  to  the  Cave-man  on  a  stone, 
taking  care  to  place  my  revolver  carefully  be- 
hind it.  I  don't  mind  admitting  that  a  loaded 
revolver,  especially  as  I  get  older,  makes  me 
nervous.  I  was  afraid  that  he  might  start 
fooling  with  it.    One  can't  be  too  careful. 

As  a  way  of  opening  conversation  I  picked  up 
the  Cave-man's  club.  *'Say,"  I  said,  "that's  a 
great  club  you  have,  eh?    By  gee!  it's  heavy!" 

"Look  out!"  said  the  Cave-man  with  a  cer- 
tain agitation  in  his  voice  as  he  reached  out  and 
took  the  club  from  me;  "don't  fool  with  that 
club !  It's  loaded !  You  know  you  could  easily 
drop  that  club  on  your  toes,  or  on  mine.  A 
man  can't  be  too  careful  with  a  loaded  club." 

He  rose  as  he  said  this  and  carried  the  club 
to  the  other  side  of  the  cave  where  he  leant  it 
against  the  wall.  Now  that  he  stood  up  and  I 
could  examine  him  he  no  longer  looked  so  big. 
In  fact  he  was  not  big  at  all.  The  effect  of  size 
must  have  come,  I  think,  from  the  great  wolf- 
skin that  he  wore.  I  have  noticed  the  same 
thing  in  Grand  Opera.  I  noticed,  too,  for  the 
first  time  that  the  cave  we  were  in  seemed  fitted 
ii8 


The  Cave  Man  as  He  Is 


up,  In  a  rude  sort  of  way,  like  a  dwelling-room. 

"This  is  a  nice  place  youVe  got,"  I  said. 

*'Dandy,  isn't  it?"  he  said,  as  he  cast  his  eyes 
around.  ^^She  fixed  it  up.  She's  got  great  taste. 
See  that  mud  sideboard?  That's  the  real  thing, 
A-one  mud!  None  of  your  cheap  rock  about 
that.  We  fetched  that  mud  for  two  miles  to 
make  that.  And  look  at  that  wicker  bucket. 
Isn't  It  great?  Hardly  leaks  at  all  except 
through  the  sides,  and  perhaps  a  little  through 
the  bottom.  She  wove  that.  She's  a  humdinger 
at  weaving." 

He  was  moving  about  as  he  spoke,  showing 
me  all  his  little  belongings.  He  reminded  me 
for  all  the  world  of  a  man  In  a  Harlem  flat, 
showing  a  visitor  how  convenient  it  all  Is.  Some- 
how, too,  the  Cave-man  had  lost  all  appearance 
of  size.  He  looked.  In  fact,  quite  little,  and 
when  he  had  pushed  his  long  hair  back  from 
his  forehad  he  seemed  to  wear  that  same,  wor- 
ried, apologetic  look  that  we  all  have.  To  a 
higher  being.  If  there  is  such,  our  little  faces 
one  and  all  appear,  no  doubt,  pathetic. 
119 


Frenzied  Fiction 


I  knew  that  he  must  be  speaking  about  his 
wife. 

^'Where  Is  she?"  I  asked. 

*'My  wife?"  he  said.  "Oh,  she's  gone  out 
somewhere  through  the  caves  with  the  kid.  You 
didn't  meet  our  kid  as  you  came  along,  did 
you?  No?  Well,  he's  the  greatest  boy  you 
ever  saw.  He  was  only  two  this  nineteenth  of 
August.  And  you  should  hear  him  say  'Pop' 
and  *Mom'  just  as  if  he  was  grown  up.  He 
is  really,  I  think,  about  the  brightest  boy  I've 
ever  known — I  mean  quite  apart  from  being  his 
father,  and  speaking  of  him  as  if  he  were  any- 
one else's  boy.     You  didn't  meet  them?" 

"No,"  I  said,  "I  didn't." 

"Oh,  well,"  the  Cave-man  went  on;  "there 
are  lots  of  ways  and  passages  through.  I  guess 
they  went  in  another  direction.  The  wife  gen- 
erally likes  to  take  a  stroll  round  in  the  morning 
and  see  some  of  the  neighbours.  But,  say,"  he 
interrupted,  "I  guess  I'm  forgetting  my  man- 
ners. Let  me  get  you  a  drink  of  cave-water. 
Here,  take  it  in  this  stone  mug !  There  you  are, 
say  when!    Where  do  we  get  it?    Oh,  we  find 

120 


The  Cave  Man  as  He  Is 


It  in  parts  of  the  cave  where  it  filters  through 
the  soil  above.  Alcoholic?  Oh,  yes,  about  fif- 
teen per  cent.,  I  think.  Some  say  it  soaks  all 
through  the  soil  of  this  State.  Sit  down  and 
be  comfortable,  and,  say,  if  you  hear  the  woman 
coming  just  slip  your  mug  behind  that  stone 
out  of  sight.  Do  you  mind?  Now,  try  one  of 
these  elm-root  cigars.  Oh,  pick  a  good  one — 
there  are  lots  of  them!" 

We  seated  ourselves  in  some  comfort  on  the 
soft  sand,  our  backs  against  the  boulders,  sip- 
ping cave-water  and  smoking  elm-root  cigars. 
It  seemed  altogether  as  If  one  were  back  in 
civilisation,  talking  to  a  genial  host. 

"Yes,"  said  the  Cave-man,  and  he  spoke,  as 
it  were,  in  a  large  and  patronising  way.  "I 
generally  let  my  wife  trot  about  as  she  likes  in 
the  daytime.  She  and  the  other  women  now- 
adays are  getting  up  all  these  different  move- 
ments, and  the  way  I  look  at  it  is  that  if  it 
amuses  her  to  run  around  and  talk  and  attend 
meetings,  why  let  her  do  it.  Of  course,"  he 
continued,  assuming  a  look  of  great  firmness, 
"If  I  liked  to  put  my  foot  down " 

121 


Frenzied  Fiction 


"Exactly,  exactly,"  I  said;  *'it's  the  same  way 
with  us!" 

"Is  it  now?"  he  questioned  with  interest.  "I 
had  imagined  that  it  was  all  different  Outside. 
You're  from  the  Outside,  aren't  you?  I  guessed 
you  must  be  from  the  skins  you  wear." 

"Have  you  never  been  Outside?"  I  asked. 

"No  fear!"  said  the  Cave-man.  "Not  for 
mine !  Down  in  here  in  the  caves,  clean  under- 
ground and  mostly  in  the  dark,  it's  all  right.  It's 
nice  and  safe."  He  gave  a  sort  of  shudder. 
"Gee!  You  fellows  out  there  must  have  your 
nerve  to  go  walking  around  like  that  on  the  out- 
side rim  of  everything,  where  the  stars  might 
fall  on  you  or  a  thousand  things  happen  to  you. 
But  then  you  Outside  Men  have  got  a  natural 
elemental  fearlessness  about  you  that  we  Cave- 
men have  lost.  I  tell  you,  I  was  pretty  scared 
when  I  looked  up  and  saw  you  standing  there." 

"Had  you  never  seen  any  Outside  Men?"  I 
asked. 

"Why,  yes,"  he  answered,  "but  never  close. 
The  most  I've  done  is  to  go  out  to  the  edges  of 
the  cave  sometimes  and  look  out  and  see  them, 

122 


The  Cave  Man  as  He  Is 


Outside  Men  and  Women,  in  the  distance.  But 
of  course,  in  one  way  or  another,  we  Cave-men 
know  all  about  them.  And  the  thing  we  envy- 
most  in  you  Outside  Men  is  the  way  you  treat 
your  women !  By  gee !  You  take  no  nonsense 
from  them — you  fellows  are  the  real  primor- 
dial, primitive  men.    We've  lost  it  somehow." 

"Why,  my  dear  fellow "  I  began. 

But  the  Cave-man,  who  had  sat  suddenly  up- 
right, interrupted. 

*'Quick!  quick!"  he  said.  "Hide  that  infer- 
nal mug!    She's  coming.    Don't  you  hear!" 

As  he  spoke  I  caught  the  sound  of  a  woman's 
voice  somewhere  in  the  outer  passages  of  the 
cave. 

"Now,  Willie,"  she  was  saying,  speaking  evi- 
dently to  the  Cave-child,  "you  come  right  along 
back  with  me,  and  if  I  ever  catch  you  getting 
In  such  a  mess  as  that  again  I'll  never  take  you 
anywhere,  so  there!" 

Her  voice  had  grown  louder.  She  entered 
the  cave  as  she  spoke — a  big-boned  woman  In  a 
suit  of  skins  leading  by  the  hand  a  pathetic  little 
123 


Frenzied  Fiction 


mite  in  a  rabbit-skin,  with  blue  eyes  and  a  slob- 
bered face. 

But  as  I  was  sitting  the  Cave-woman  evi- 
dently couldn't  see  me;  for  she  turned  at  once 
to  speak  to  her  husband,  unconscious  of  my 
presence. 

'Well,  of  all  the  idle  creatures!'*  she  ex- 
claimed, "loafing  here  in  the  sand!"  she  gave  a 
sniff,  '*and  smoking !" 

"My  dear,"  began  the  Cave-man. 

"Don't  you  my-dear  me!"  she  answered. 
"Look  at  this  place!  Nothing  tidied  up  yet 
and  the  day  half  through !  Did  you  put  the  alli- 
gator on  to  boil?" 

"I  was  just  going  to  say "  began  the 

Cave-man. 

*' Going  to  say !  Yes,  I  don't  doubt  you  were 
going  to  say.  You'd  go  on  saying  all  day  if 
I'd  let  you.  What  I'm  asking  you  is.  Is  the  alli- 
gator on  to  boil  for  dinner  or  is  it  not My 

gracious!"     She  broke  off  all  of  a  sudden,  as 

she  caught  sight  of  me.     "Why  didn't  you  say 

there  was  company?    Land  sakes !    And  you  sit 

124 


The  Cave  Man  as  He  Is 


there   and  never  say  there  was  a  gentleman 
here!'' 

She  had  hustled  across  the  cave  and  was 
busily  arranging  her  hair  with  a  pool  of  water 
as  a  mirror. 

^'Gracious!"  she  said,  "I'm  a  perfect  fright! 
You  must  excuse  me,"  she  added,  looking  round 
toward  me,  "for  being  in  this  state.  I'd  just 
slipped  on  this  old  fur  blouse  and  run  around  to 
a  neighbour's  and  I'd  no  idea  that  he  was  going 
to  bring  in  company.  Just  like  him !  I'm  afraid 
we've  nothing  but  a  plain  alligator  stoo  to  offer 
you,  but  I'm  sure  if  you'll  stay  to  dinner " 

She  was  hustling  about  already,  good  primi- 
tive housewife  that  she  was,  making  the  stone- 
plates  rattle  on  the  mud  table. 

"Why,  really "  I  began.  But  I  was  in- 
terrupted by  a  sudden  exclamation  from  both 
the  Cave-man  and  the  Cave-woman  together, 
"Willie!  Where's  Willie!" 

"Gracious!"  cried  the  woman.     "He's  wan- 
dered  out   alone — oh,   hurry,   look  for  him! 
Something  might  get  him !    He  may  have  fallen 
in  the  water !    Oh,  hurry !" 
125 


Frenzied  Fiction 


They  were  off  in  a  moment,  shouting  into  the 
dark  passages  of  the  outer  cave :  "Willie !  Wil- 
lie!" There  was  agonised  anxiety  in  their 
voices. 

And  then  in  a  moment  as  it  seemed  they  were 
back  again,  with  Willie  in  their  arms,  blubber- 
ing, his  rabbit-skin  all  wet. 

"Goodness  gracious!'*  said  the  Cave-woman. 
"He'd  fallen  right  in,  the  poor  little  man. 
Hurry,  dear,  and  get  something  dry  to  wrap 
him  in!  Goodness,  what  a  fright!  Quick, 
darling,  give  me  something  to  rub  him  with." 

Anxiously  the  Cave-parents  moved  about  be- 
side the  child,  all  quarrel  vanished. 

"But  surely,"  I  said,  as  they  calmed  down  a 
little,  "just  there  where  Willie  fell  in,  beside  the 
passage  that  I  came  through,  there  is  only  three 
inches  of  water." 

"So  there  is,"  they  said,  both  together,  "but 
just  suppose  it  had  been  three  feet!" 

Later  on,  when  Willie  was  restored,  they 
both  renewed  their  invitation  to  me  to  stay  to 
dinner. 

"Didn't  you  say,"  said  the  Cave-man,  "that 
126 


The  Cave  Man  as  He  Is 


you  wanted  to  make  some  notes  on  the  differ- 
ence between  Cave-people  and  the  people  of 
your  world  of  to-day?" 

"I  thank  you,"  I  answered,  "I  have  already 
all  the  notes  I  want  !** 


127 


VI I L— Ideal  Interviews 


WITH  A  EUROPEAN  PRINCE 

[With   any    European   Prince — Travelling   in 
America^ 

ON  receiving  our  card  the  Prince,  to  our 
great  surprise  and  pleasure,  sent  down 
a  most  cordial  message  that  he  would 
be  delighted  to  see  us  at  once.    This 
thrilled  us. 

*'Take  us,"  we  said  to  the  elevator  boy,  "to 
the  apartments  of  the  Prince."  We  were 
pleased  to  see  him  stagger  and  lean,  against 
his  wheel  to  get  his  breath  back. 

In  a  few  moments  we  found  ourselves  cross- 
ing the  threshold  of  the  Prince's  apartments. 
The  Prince,  who  is  a  charming  young  man  of 
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Ideal  Interviews 


from  twenty-six  to  twenty-seven,  came  across 
the  floor  to  meet  us  with  an  extended  hand  and 
a  simple  gesture  of  welcome.  We  have  seldom 
seen  any  one  come  across  the  floor  more  simply. 

The  Prince,  who  Is  travelling  Incognito  as 
the  Count  of  Film  Flam,  was  wearing,  when 
we  saw  him,  the  plain  morning  dress  of  a  gen- 
tleman of  leisure.  We  learned  that  a  little 
earlier  he  had  appeared  at  breakfast  in  the  cos- 
tume of  a  Unitarian  clergyman,  under  the  in- 
cognito of  the  Bishop  of  Bongee:  while  later 
on  he  appeared  at  lunch,  as  a  delicate  compli- 
ment to  our  city,  in  the  costume  of  a  Columbia 
professor  of  Yiddish. 

The  Prince  greeted  us  with  the  greatest  cor- 
diality, seated  himself,  without  the  slightest  af- 
fectation, and  motioned  to  us,  with  indescriba- 
ble bonhomie,  his  permission  to  remain  stand- 
ing. 

"Well,"  said  the  Prince,  "what  it  is?" 

We  need  hardly  say  that  the  Prince,  who  is 
a  consummate  master  of  ten  languages,  speaks 
English  quite  as  fluently  as  he  does  Chinese. 
129 


Frenzied  Fiction 


Indeed,  for  a  moment,  we  could  scarcely  tell 
which  he  was  talking. 

*'What  are  your  impressions  of  the  United 
States?"  we  asked  as  we  took  out  our  note- 
book. 

"I  am  afraid,"  answered  the  Prince,  with  the 
delightful  smile  which  is  characteristic  of  him, 
and  which  we  noticed  again  and  again  during 
the  interview,  "that  I  must  scarcely  tell  you 
that." 


We  realised  immediately  that  we  wei;e  in  the 
presence  not  only  of  a  soldier  but  of  one  of  the 
nlost  consummate  diplomats  of  the  present  day. 

"May  we  ask  then,"  we  resumed,  correcting 
our  obvious  blunder,  "what  are  your  impres- 
sions. Prince,  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean?" 

"Ah,"  said  the  Prince,  with  that  peculiar 
thoughtfulness  which  is  so  noticeable  in  him 
and  which  we  observed  not  once  but  several 
times,  "the  Atlantic!" 

Volumes  could  not  have  expressed  his 
thought  better. 

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Ideal  Interviews 


**Did  you,"  we  asked,  "see  any  Ice  during 
your  passage  across?" 

**Ah !"  said  the  Prince,  "ice !    Let  me  think." 

We  did  so. 

"Ice,"  repeated  the  Prince  thoughtfully. 

We  realised  that  we  were  in  the  presence  not 
only  of  a  soldier,  a  linguist  and  a  diplomat, 
but  of  a  trained  scientist  accustomed  to  exact 
research. 

"Ice !"  repeated  the  Prince,  "did  I  see  any 
ice?    No." 

Nothing  could  have  been  more  decisive,  more 
final  than  the  clear,  simple  brevity  of  the 
Prince's  "No."  He  had  seen  no  ice.  He  knew 
he  had  seen  no  ice.  He  said  he  had  seen  no 
Ice.  Nothing  could  have  been  more  straight- 
forward, more  direct.  We  felt  assured  from 
that  moment  that  the  Prince  had  not  seen  any 
ice. 

The  exquisite  good  taste  with  which  the 
Prince  had  answered  our  question,  served  to 
put  us  entirely  at  our  ease,  and  we  presently 
found  ourselves  chatting  with  his  Royal  High- 

131 


Frenzied  Fiction 


ness  with  the  greatest  freedom  and  without  the 
slightest  gene  or  mauvaise  honte,  or,  in  fact, 
malvoisie  of  any  kind. 

We  realised,  indeed,  that  we  were  in  the 
presence  not  only  of  a  trained  soldier,  a  lin- 
guist and  a  diplomat,  but  also  of  a  conversa- 
tionalist of  the  highest  order. 

His  Highness,  who  has  an  exquisite  sense 
of  humour — indeed,  it  broke  out  again  and 
again  during  our  talk  with  him — expressed  him- 
self as  both  amused  and  perplexed  over  our 
American  money. 

"It  is  very  difficult,"  he  said,  "with  us  it  is 
so  simple ;  six  and  a  half  groner  are  equal  to  one 
and  a  third  gross-groner  or  the  quarter  part  of 
our  Rigsdaler.    Here  it  is  so  complicated." 

We  ventured  to  show  the  Prince  a  fifty-cent 
piece  and  to  explain  its  value  by  putting  two 
quarters  beside  it. 

"I  see,"  said  the  Prince,  whose  mathematical 
ability  is  quite  exceptional,  "two  twenty-five- 
cent  pieces  are  equal  to  one  fifty-cent  piece.  I 
must  try  to  remember  that.  Meantime,"  he 
added,  with  a  gesture  of  royal  condescension — 
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Ideal  Interviews 


putting  the  money  In  his  pocket — "I  shall  keep 
your  coins  as  Instructors" ; — we  murmured  our 
thanks — ''and  now  explain  to  me,  please,  your 
five-dollar  gold  piece  and  your  ten-dollar 
eagle." 

We  felt  It  proper,  however,  to  shift  the  sub- 
ject, and  asked  the  Prince  a  few  questions  In 
regard  to  his  views  on  American  politics.  We 
soon  found  that  his  Serene  Highness,  although 
this  Is  his  first  visit  to  this  continent.  Is  a  keen 
student  of  our  Institutions  and  our  political  life. 
Indeed,  his  Altitude  showed  by  his  answers  to 
our  questions  that  he  Is  as  well  Informed  about 
our  politics  as  we  are  ourselves.  On  being 
asked  what  he  viewed  as  the  uppermost  ten- 
dency In  our  political  life  of  to-day,  the  Prince 
replied  thoughtfully  that  he  didn't  know.  To 
our  Inquiry  as  to  whether  in  his  opinion  democ- 
racy was  moving  forward  or  backward,  the 
Prince,  after  a  moment  of  reflection,  answered 
that  he  had  no  Idea.  On  our  asking  which  of 
the  generals  of  our  Civil  War  was  regarded  In 
Europe  as  the  greatest  strategist,  His  Highness 


Frenzied  Fiction 


answered  without  hesitation — "George  Wash- 
ington." 

Before  closing  our  Interview  the  Prince,  who, 
like  his  illustrious  father,  is  an  enthusiastic 
sportsman,  completely  turned  the  tables  on  us 
by  inquiring  eagerly  about  the  prospects  for 
large  game  in  America. 

We  told  him  something — as  much  as  we 
could  recollect — of  woodchuck  hunting  In  our 
own  section  of  the  country.  The  Prince  was 
Interested  at  once.  His  eye  lighted  up,  and 
the  peculiar  air  of  fatigue,  or  languor,  which 
we  had  thought  to  remark  on  his  face  during 
our  Interview,  passed  entirely  off  his  features. 
He  asked  us  a  number  of  questions,  quickly 
and  without  pausing,  with  the  air,  in  fact,  of 
a  man  accustomed  to  command  and  not  to  listen. 
How  was  the  woodchuck  hunted?  From  horse- 
back or  from  an  elephant?  Or  from  an  ar- 
moured car,  or  turret?  How  many  beaters  did 
one  use  to  beat  up  the  woodchuck?  What 
bearers  was  It  necessary  to  carry  with  one? 
How  great  a  danger  must  one  face  of  having 
134 


Ideal  Interviews 


one's  beaters  killed?  What  percentage  of  risk 
must  one  be  prepared  to  incur  of  accidentally 
shooting  one's  own  beaters?  What  did  a  bearer 
cost?  and  so  on. 

All  these  questions  we  answered  as  best  we 
could,  the  Prince  apparently  seizing  the  gist, 
or  essential  part  of  our  answer,  before  we  had 
said  it.  .,^-^ 


In  concluding  the  discussion  we  ventured  to 
ask  His  Highness  for  his  autograph.  The 
Prince,  who  has  perhaps  a  more  exquisite  sense 
of  humour  than  any  other  sovereign  of  Europe, 
declared  with  a  laugh  that  he  had  no  pen. 
Still  roaring  over  this  inimitable  drollery,  we 
begged  the  Prince  to  honor  us  by  using  our  own 
fountain-pen. 

*Ts  there  any  ink  in  it?"  asked  the  Prince — 
which  threw  us  into  a  renewed  paroxysm  of 
laughter. 

The  Prince  took  the  pen  and  very  kindly 
autographed  for  us  seven  photographs  of  him- 
self. He  offered  us  more,  but  we  felt  that 
seven  was  about  all  we  could  use.  We  were 
still  suffocated  with  laughter  over  the  Prince's 
135 


Frenzied  Fiction 


wit;  His  Highness  was  still  signing  photo- 
graphs when  an-^fqiipxjry  appeared  and  whis- 
pered in  the  Prince's  ear.  His  Highness,  with 
the  consummate  tact  to  be  learned  only  at  a 
court,  turned  quietly  without  a  word  and  left 
the  room. 

We  never,  in  all  our  experience,  remember 
seeing  a  prince — or  a  mere  man  for  the  matter 
of  that — cleave  a  room  with  greater  suavity,  dis- 
cretion, or  aplomb.  It  was  a  revelation  of 
breeding,  of  race,  of  long  slavery  to  caste. 
And  yet,  with  it  all,  it  seemed  to  have  a  touch 
of  finality  about  it — a  hint  that  the  entire  pro- 
ceeding was  deliberate,  planned,  not  to  be  al- 
tered by  circumstance.     He  did  not  come  back. 

We  understand  that  he  appeared  later  in  the 
morning  at  a  civic  reception  in  the  costume  of  an 
Alpine  Jaeger,  and  attended  the  matinee  in  the 
dress  of  a  lieutenant  of  police. 

Meantime  he  has  our  pen.  If  he  turns  up  in 
any  costume  that  we  can  spot  at  sight,  we  shall 
ask  him  for  it. 


136 


Ideal  Interviews 


II 

WITH  OUR  GREATEST  ACTOR 

l^That  is  to  say,  with  Any  One  of  our  Sixteen 
Greatest  Actors'] 

It  was  within  the  privacy  of  his  own  library 
that  we  obtained — need  we  say  with  infinite  diffi- 
culty— our  interview  with  the  Great  Actor.  He 
was  sitting  in  a  deep  armchair,  so  buried  in  his 
own  thoughts  that  he  was  oblivious  of  our  ap- 
proach. On  his  knee  before  him  lay  a  cabinet 
photograph  of  himself.  His  eyes  seemed  to 
be  peering  into  it,  as  if  seeking  to  fathom  its 
unfathomable  mystery.  We  had  time  to  note 
that  a  beautiful  carbon  photogravure  of  him- 
self stood  on  a  table  at  his  elbow,  while  a  mag- 
nificent half-tone  pastel  of  himself  was  sus- 
pended on  a  string  from  the  ceiling.  It  was 
only  when  we  had  seated  ourself  in  a  chair  and 
taken  out  our  notebook  that  the  Great  Actor 
looked  up. 

**An  interview?"  he  said,  and  we  noted  with 

137 


Frenzied  Fiction 


pain  the  weariness  in  his  tone,  ^'another  inter- 
view!" 

^We  bowed. 

"Publicity!"  he  murmured  rather  to  himself 
than  to  us,  ^'publicity!  Why  must  one  always 
^e  forced  into  publicity?" 

It  was  not  our  intention,  we  explained  apolo- 
getically, to  publish  or  to  print  a  single 
word, 

*'Eh,  what?"  exclaimed  the  Great  Actor,  "not 
print  it?     Not  publish  It?     Then  what  in " 

Not,  we  explained,  without  his  consent. 

"Ah!"  he  murmured  wearily,  "my  consent. 
Yes,  yes,  I  must  give  it.  The  world  demands 
it.  Print,  publish  anything  you  like.  I  am  in- 
different to  praise,  careless  of  fame.  Posterity 
will  judge  me.  But,"  he  added  more  briskly, 
"let  me  see  a  proof  of  it  in  time  to  make  any 
changes  I  might  care  to." 

We  bowed  our  assent.  "And  now,"  we  be- 
gan, "may  we  be  permitted  to  ask  a  few  ques- 
tions about  your  art?  And  first,  in  which 
branch  of  the  drama  do  you  consider  that  your 

138 


Ideal  Interviews 


genius  chiefly  lies,  In  tragedy  or  In  comedy?" 

"In  both,"  said  the  Great  Actor. 

"You  excel  then,"  we  continued,  "In  neither 
the  one  nor  the  other?" 

"Not  at  all,"  he  answered,  "I  excel  In  each 
of  them." 

"EJxcuse  us,"  we  said,  "we  haven't  made>our 
meaning  quite  clear.  What  we  meant  to  say  Is, 
stated  vel^y  simply,  that  you  do  not  consider 
yourself  better  In  either  of  them  than  In  the 
other?" 

"Not  at  all,"  said  the  Great  Actor,  as  he  put 
out  his  arm  with  that  splendid  gesture  that  we 
have  known  and  admired  for  years,  at  the  same 
time  throwing  back  his  leonine  head  so  that  his 
leonine  hair  fell  back  from  his  leonine  fore- 
head. "Not  at  all.  I  do  better  In  both  of 
thepT.  My  genius  demands  both  tragedy  and 
Qdmedy  at  the  same  time." 

"Ah,"  we  said,  as  a  light  broke  In  upon  us, 
"then  that,  we  presume,  is  the  reason  why  you 
are  about  to  appear  in  Shakespeare?" 

The  Great  Actor  frowned. 
139 


Frenzied  Fiction 


"I  would  rather  put  it,"  he  said,  "that  Shake- 
speare Is  about  to  appear  in  me." 

^Of    course,    of    course,"    we    murmured, 
asl^amed  of  our  own  stupldity> 
y^"!  appear,"  went  on  the  Great  Actor,  "in 
Hamlet.     I  expect  to  present,  I  may  say,  an 
entirely  new  Hamlet." 

"A  new  Hamlet!"  we  exclaimed,  fascinated; 
*%  new  HamTet!     Is  such  a  thing  possible?" 

"Entirely,"  said  the  Great  Actor,  throwing 
his  leonine  head  forward  again.  "I  have  de- 
voted years  of  study  to  the  part.  The  whole 
conception  of  the  part  of  Hamlet  has  been 
wrong." 

We  sat  stunned. 
'^''"All  actors  hitherto,"  continued  the  Great 
Actor,  "or  rather,  I  should  say,  all  so-called 
actors — I  mean  all  those  who  tried  to  act  be- 
fore me — have  been  entirely  mistaken  in  their 
presentation.  They  have  presented  Hamlet  as 
dressed  in  black  velvet." 

"Yes,  yes,"  we  interjected,  "in  black  velvet, 
yes!"^ 

'^'^I'X  good-     The  thing  is  absurd,"  ^ontin- 
140 


Ideal  Interviews 


ued  the  Gr^at  Actor,  as  he  reached  down  two 
or  three  heavy  volumes  from  the  shelf  beside 
him.  "Have  you  ever  studied  the  Elizabethan 
era?" 

"The  which?"  we  asked  modestly. 

"The  Elizabethan  era?" 

We  were  silent. 

"Or  the  pre-Shakespearian  tragedy?" 


We  hung  our  head.  -#      /» 

"If  you  had,  you  would  knoMtl'iat/a  Hamlet 
in  black  velvet  is  perfectly  ridiculous.  In 
Shakespeare's  day — as  I  could  prove  In  a  mo- 
ment if  you  had  the  Intelligence  to  understand 
it — there  was  no  such  thing  as  black  velvet.  It 
didn't  exist." 

"And  how  then,"  we  asked,  Intrigued,  puz- 
zled and  yet  delighted,  "do  you  present  Ham- 
let?" 

"In  brown  velvet,"  said  the  Great  Actor. 

"Great  Heavens,"  we  exclaimed,  "this  is  a 
revolution." 

,f\;"lt  is.    But  that  is  only  one  part  of  my  con- 
Q^  Geption.     The  main  thing  will  be  my  presenta- 


Frenzied  Fiction 


tionpf  what  I  may  call  the  psychology  of  Ham- 
Het?"^ 

"The  psychology!''  we  said. 

"Yes,"  resumed  the  Great  Actor,  "the  psy- 
chology. To  make  Hamlet  understood,  I  want 
to  show  him  as  a  man  bowed  down  by  a  great 
burden.  He  Is  overwhelmed  with  Weltsch- 
(^y/  merz.  He  carries  in  him  the  whole  weight  of 
the  Zeitgeist;  in  fact,  everlasting  negation  lies 
on  him " 

"You  mean,"  we  said,  trying  to  speak  as 
cheerfully  as  we  could,  "that  things  are  a  little 
bit  too  much  for  him." 

"His  will,"  went  on  the  Great  Actor,  disre- 
garding our  interruption,  "is  paralysed.  He 
seeks  to  move  in  one  direction  and  is  hurled 
in  another.  One  moment  he  sinks  into  the 
abyss.  The  next,  he  rises  above  the  clouds. 
His  feet  seek  the  ground,  but  find  only  the 
air " 

"Wonderful,"  we  said,  "but  will  you  not 
need  a  good  deal  of  machinery?" 

"Machinery!"  exclaimed  the  Great  Actor, 
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Ideal  Interviews 


with  a  leonine  laugh,  *'the  machinery  of 
thought,  the  mechanism  of  power,  of  magne- 
tism  " 

"Ah,"  we  said,  "electricity." 

"Not  at  all,"  said  the  Great  Actor;  "you 
fall  to  understand.  It  Is  all  done  by  my  ren- 
^erlng.j  Take,  for  example,  the  famous  solilo- 
quy on  death.     You  know  It?" 

"  'To  be  or  not  to  be,*  "  we  began. 

"Stop,"  said  the  Great  Actor.  "Now  observe. 
It  Is  a  soliloquy.  Precisely.  That  Is  the  key 
to  It.  It  Is  something  that  Hamlet  says  to  him- 
self. Not  a  word  of  it.  In  my  interpretation.  Is 
actually  spoken.  All  Is  done  In  absolute,  un- 
broken silence." 

"How  on  earth,"  we  began,  "can  you  do 
that?" 

"Entirely  and  solely  with  my  faceJ' 

Good  Heavens!  Was  It  possible?  We 
looked  again,  this  time  very  closely,  at  the 
Great  Actor's  face.  We  realised  with  a  thrill 
that  It  might  be  done. 

"I  come  before  the  audience  so,"  he  went 
143 


Frenzied  Fiction 


©n,    "and  soliloquise — ^thus — follow  my   face, 
please " 

As  the  Great  Actor  spoke,  he  threw  himself 
into  a  characteristic  pose  with  folded  arms, 
while  gust  after  gust  of  emotion,  of  expression, 
of  alternate  hope,  doubt  and  despair,  swept — 
we  might  say — chased  themselves  across  his 
features. 

'^'Wonderful!'*  we  gasped. 

"Shakespeare's  lines,"  said  the  Great  Actor, 
!    as  his  face  subsided  to  its  habitual  calm,  "are 
- '  f,      not  necessary;  not,  at  least,  with  my  acting. 
L/*^      The  linesj  Indeed,-  are  mere  stage  directions, 
nothing  more.     I  leave  them  out.     This  hap- 
pens again  and  again  in  the  play.     Take,  for 
instance,  the  familiar  scene  where  Hamlet  holds 
the  skull  in  his  hand:  Shakespeare  here  suggests 
the  words  'Alas,  poor  Yowck!     I  knew  him 
wel]...-^'  " 

'^'Yes,  yes!"  we  interrupted,  in  spite  of  our- 
self,  "  'a  fellow  of  infinite  jest '  " 

"Your  intonation  is  awful,'-*';  said  the  Actor. 
"But   listen.  ^  In   my   interpretation   I   use  no 
words  at  all.     I  merely  carry  the  skull  quietly 
144 


Ideal  Interviews 


In  my  hand — very  slowly — across  the  stage. 
There  I  lean  against  a  pillar  at  the  side,  with 
the  skull  In  the  palm  of  my  hand,  and  look  at 
It  In  silence." 

"Wonderful!"  we  said. 

"I  then  cross  over  to  the  right  of  the  stage — 
very  Impressively — and  seat  myself  on  a  plain 
wooden  bench — and  remain  for  some  time, 
looking  at  the  skull." 

''Marvellous!" 
.   ^1  then  pass  to  the  back  of  the  stage  and  lie 
down  on  my  stomach,   still  holding  the  skull 
before   my   eyes:    after   holding   this    posture 
for  some  time,  I  crawl  slowly  forward,  por- 
traying by  the  movement  of  my  legs  and  stom- 
ach the  whole  sad  history  of  Yorick.     Finally 
I  turn  my  back  on  the  audience,  still  holding  the 
skull,  and  convey  through  the  spasmodic  move- 
ments of  my  back. Hamlet's  passionate  grief  at 
the  loss  of  his  friend." 
y^'Why!"  we  exclaimed,  beside  ourself  with 
Excitement,  "this  is  not  merely  a  revolution,  it 
is  a  revelation." 

"Call  It  both,"  said  the  Great  Actor. 
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Frenzied  Fiction 


"The  meaning  of  it  Is,"  we  went  on,  "that 
you  practically  don't  need  Shakespeare  at  all." 

"Exactly,  I  do  not.  I  could  do  better  with- 
out him.  Shakespeare  cramps  me.  What  I 
really  mean  to  convey  Is  not  Shakespeare,  but 
something  greater,  larger, — how  shall  I  ex- 
press It — bigger — In  fact "       The  Great 

Actor  paused  and  we  waited,  our  pencil  poised 

in  the  air.     " In  fact,"  he  murmured,  as 

his  eyes  lifted  In  an  expression  of  something 
like  rapture,  "in  fact — ME." 

He  remained  thus,  motionless,  without  mov- 
ing. We  slipped  gently  to  our  hands  and  knees 
and  crawled  quietly  to  the  door,  and  so  down 
the  stairs,  our  notebook  in  our  teeth. 


Ill 
WITH  OUR   GREATEST  SCIENTIST 

[As  seen  in  Any  of  Our  College  Laboratories^ 

It  was  among  the  retorts  and  test-tubes  of 
his  physical  laboratory  that  we  were  privileged 
146 


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to  interview  the  Great  Scientist.  His  back  was 
towards  us  when  we  entered.  With  charac- 
teristic modesty  he  kept  it  so  for  some  time 
after  our  entry.  Even  when  he  turned  round 
and  saw  us  his  face  did  not  react  off  us  as  we 
should  have  expected. 

He  seemed  to  look  at  us,  If  such  a  thing  were 
possible,  without  seeing  us,  or,  at  least,  without 
wishing  to  see  us. 

We  handed  him  our  card. 

He  took  it,  read  It,  dropped  it  Into  a  bowlful 
of  sulphuric  acid,  and  then,  with  a  quiet  gesture 
of  satisfaction,  turned  again  to  his  work. 

We  sat  for  some  time  behind  him.  ^'This, 
then,"  we  thought  to  ourselves  (we  always 
think  to  ourselves  when  we  are  left  alone),  "is 
the  man,  or  rather  Is  the  back  of  the  man,  who 
has  done  more"  (here  we  consulted  the  notes 
given  us  by  our  editor)  "to  revolutionise  our 
conception  of  atomic  dynamics  than  the  back  of 
any  other  man." 

Presently  the  Great  Scientist  turned  towards 
us  with  a  sigh  that  seemed  to  our  ears  to  have 
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Frenzied  Fiction 


a  note  of  weariness  in  it.  Something,  we  felt, 
must  be  making  him  tired. 

"What  can  I  do  for  you?"  he  said. 

"Professor,"  we  answered,  "we  have  called 
upon  you  in  response  to  an  overwhelming  de- 
mand on  the  part  of  the  public — '■ — " 

The  Great  Scientist  nodded. 

" to  learn   something  of  your  new  re- 


searches and  discoveries  in"  (here  we  consulted 
a  minute  card  which  we  carried  in  our  pocket) 
"in  radio-active-emanations  which  are  already 
becoming"  (we  consulted  our  card  again)  "a 
household  word " 

The  professor  raised  his  hand  as  if  to  check 
us. 

"I  would  rather  say,"  he  murmured,  "helio- 
radio-active " 

"So  would  we,"  we  admitted,  "much  rath- 
er  " 

"After  all,"  said  the  Great  Scientist,  "helium 
shares  in  the  most  intimate  degree  the  proper- 
ties of  radium.  So,  too,  for  the  matter  of 
that,"  he  added  In  afterthought,  "do  thorium, 
and  borluml" 

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"Even  borlum!"  we  exclaimed,  delighted, 
and  writing  rapidly  in'bur  note  book.  Already 
we  saw  ourselves  writing  up  as  our  headline 
Borium  Shares  Properties  of  Thorium, 

"Just  what  is  it,"  said  the  Great  Scientist, 
"that  you  want  to  know?" 

"Professor,"  we  answered,  "what  our  jour- 
nal wants  is  a  plain  and  simple  explanation,  so 
clear  that  even  our  readers  can  understand  it, 
of  the  new  scientific  discoveries  in  radium.  We 
understand  that  you  possess,  more  than  any 
other  man,  the  gift  of  clear  and  lucid 
thought " 

The  Professor  nodded. 

" and  that  you  are  able  to  express  your- 
self with  greater  simplicity  than  any  two  men 
now  lecturing." 

The  Professor  nodded  again. 

"Now,  then,"  we  said,  spreading  our  notes  on 
our  knee,  "go  at  it.  Tell  us,  and,  through  us, 
tell  a  quarter  of  a  million  anxious  readers  just 
what  all  these  new  discoveries  are  about." 

"The  whole  thing,"  said  the  Professor, 
warming  up  to  his  work  as  he  perceived  from 
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Frenzied  Fiction 


the  motions  of  our  face  and  ears  our  intelligent 
Interest,  "Is  simplicity  Itself.  I  can  give  It  to 
you  In  a  word " 

'That's  It,"  we  said.  "Give  It  to  us  that 
way. 

"It  amounts,  If  one  may  boil  It  down  Into  a 
phrase " 


"Boil  It,  boil  It,"  we  Interrupted. 

" amounts.  If  one  takes  the  mere  gist  of 

It " 

"Take  It,"  we  said,  "take  It." 

" amounts  to  the  resolution  of  the  ulti- 
mate atom." 

"Ha!"  we  exclaimed. 

"I  must  ask  you  first  to  clear  your  mind," 
the  Professor  continued,  "of  all  conception  of 
ponderable  magnitude." 

We  nodded.  We  had  already  cleared  our 
mind  of  this. 

"In  fact,"  added  the  Professor,  with  what  we 
thought  a  quiet  note  of  warning  In  his  voice,  "I 
need  hardly  tell  you  that  what  we  are  dealing 
with  must  be  regarded  as  altogether  ultra- 
microscopic." 

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We  hastened  to  assure  the  professor  that,  in 
accordance  with  the  high  standards  of  honour 
represented  by  our  journal,  we  should  of  course 
regard  anything  that  he  might  say  as  ultra- 
microscopic  and  treat  it  accordingly. 

*'You  say,  then,"  we  continued,  "that  the  es- 
sence of  the  problem  is  the  resolution  of  the 
atom.  Do  you  think  you  can  give  us  any  idea 
of  what  the  atom  is  ?" 

The  professor  looked  at  us  searchingly. 

We  looked  back  at  him,  openly  and  frankly. 
The  moment  was  critical  for  our  Interview. 
Could  he  do  it?  Were  we  the  kind  of  person 
that  he  could  give  It  to?  Could  we  get  it  If  he 
did? 

"I  think  I  can,"  he  said.  "Let  us  begin  with 
the  assumption  that  the  atom  is  an  infinitesimal 
magnitude.  Very  good.  Let  us  grant,  then, 
that  though  it  Is  Imponderable  and  Indivisible 
it  must  have  a  spacial  content?  You  grant  me 
this?" 

"We  do,"  we  said,  "we  do  more  than  this,  we 
give  it  to  you." 

"Very  well.     If  spacial.  It  must  have  dimen- 

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Frenzied  Fiction 


slon :  If  dimension — form :  let  us  assume  ex  hy- 
pothesi  the  form  to  be  that  of  a  spheroid  and 
see  where  it  leads  us." 

The  professor  was  now  Intensely  Interested. 
He  walked  to  and  fro  in  his  laboratory.  His 
features  worked  with  excitement.  We  worked 
ours,  too,  as  sympathetically  as  we  could. 

*'There  is  no  other  possible  method  In  in- 
ductive science,"  he  added,  "than  to  embrace 
some  hypothesis,  the  most  attractive  that  one 
can  find,  and  remain  with  it " 

We  nodded.  Even  in  our  own  humble  life 
after  our  day's  work  we  had  found  *;his  true. 

"Now,"  said  the  Professor,  planting  himself 
squarely  In  front  of  us,  "assuming  a  spherical 
form,  and  a  spacial  content,  assuming  the 
dynamic  forces  that  are  familiar  to  us  and  as- 
suming— the  thing  is  bold,  I  admit " 

We  looked  as  bold  as  we  could. 

" assuming  that  the  ionSy   or  nuclei  of 

the  atom — I  know  no  better  word " 

"Neither  do  we,"  we  said. 

*' that  the  nuclei  move  under  the  energy 

of  such  forces,  what  have  we  got?" 


Ideal  Interviews 


**Ha!"  wesald. 

'What  have  we  got?  Why,  the  simplest 
matter  conceivable.  The  forces  Inside  our 
atom — Itself,  mind  you,  the  function  of  a  circle 
— mark  that " 

We  did. 

" ^becomes  merely  a  function  of  tt   !" 


The  Great  Scientist  paused  with  a  laugh  of 
triumph. 

"A  function  of  ir  !"  we  repeated  in  delight. 

'Treclsely.  Our  conception  of  ultimate  mat- 
ter Is  reduced  to  that  of  an  oblate  spheroid  de- 
scribed by  the  revolution  of  an  ellipse  on  Its 
own  minor  axis!" 

"Good  heavens!"  we  said,  "merely  that." 

"Nothing  else.  And  In  that  case  any  fur- 
ther calculation  becomes  a  mere  matter  of  the 
extraction  of  a  root." 

"How  simple,"  we  murmured. 

"Is  It  not,"  said  the  Professor.  "In  fact, 
I  am  accustomed.  In  talking  to  my  class,  to  give 
them  a  very  clear  Idea,  by  simply  taking  as  our 
root  F — F  being  any  finite  constant " 

He  looked  at  us  sharply.     We  nodded. 

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" — and  raising  F  to  the  log  of  infinity.  I  find 
they  apprehend  it  very  readily." 

"Do  they?"  we  murmured.  Ourselves  we 
felt  as  if  the  Log  of  Infinity  carried  us  to  ground 
higher  than  what  we  commonly  care  to  tread 
on. 

"Of  course,"  said  the  Professor,  "the  Log  of 
Infinity  is  an  Unknown." 

"Of  course,"  we  said,  very'gravely.  We  felt 
ourselves  here  in  the  presence  of  something  that 
demanded  our  reverence. 

"But  still,"  continued  the  Professor,  almost 
jauntily,  "we  can  handle  the  Unknown  just  as 
easily  as  anything  else." 

This  puzzled  us.  We  kept  silent.  We 
thought  it  wiser  to  move  on  to  more  general 
ground.  In  any  case,  our  notes  were  now 
nearly  complete. 

"These  discoveries,  then,"  we  said,  "are  ab- 
solutely revolutionary." 

"They  are,"  said  the  Professor. 

"You  have  now,  as  we  understand,  got  the 
atom — how  shall  we  put  it? — got  it  where  you 
want  It." 

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''Not  exactly,"  said  the  Professor  with  a  sad 
smile. 

''What  do  you  mean?"  we  asked. 

"Unfortunately  our  analysis,  perfect  though 
it  is,  stops  short.     We  have  no  synthesis." 

The  Professor  spoke  as  in  deep  sorrow. 

"No  synthesis,"  we  moaned.  We  felt  it  was 
a  cruel  blow.  But  in  any  case  our  notes  were 
now  elaborate  enough.  We  felt  that  our  read- 
ers could  do  without  a  synthesis.  We  rose 
to  go. 

"Synthetic  dynamics,"  said  the  Professor, 
taking  us  by  the  coat,  "is  only  beginning " 

"In  that  case "  we  murmured,  disengag- 
ing his  hand 

"But,  wait,  wait,"  he  pleaded,  "wait  for  an- 
other fifty  years " 

"We  will,"  we  said,  very  earnestly,  "but 
meantime  as  our  paper  goes  to  press  this  after- 
noon we  must  go  now.  In  fifty  years  we  will 
come  back." 

"Oh,  I  see,  I  see,"  said  the  Professor,  "you 
are  writing  all  this  for  a  newspaper.     I  see." 


Frenzied  Fiction 


"Yes,"  we  said,  "we  mentioned  that  at  the 
beginning." 

"Ah!"  said  the  Professor,  "did  you?  Very 
possibly.     Yes." 

"We  propose,"  we  said,  "to  feature  the  arti- 
cle for  next  Saturday." 

"Will  it  be  long?"  he  asked. 

"About  two  columns,"  we  answered. 

"And  how  much,"  said^  the  Professor  in  a 
hesitating  way,  "do  I  have  to  pay  you  to  put 
it  in?" 

"How  much  which?"  we  asked. 

"How  much  do  I  have  to  pay?" 

"Why,  Professor — "  we  began  quickly.  Then 
we  checked  ourselves.  After  all  was  it  right  to 
undeceive  him,  this  quiet,  absorbed  man  of  sci- 
ence with  his  ideals,  his  atoms  and  his  emana- 
tions. No,  a  hundred  times  no.  Let  him  pay 
a  hundred  times. 

"It  will  cost  you,"  we  said  very  firmly,  "ten 
dollars." 

The  professor  began  groping  among  his  ap- 
paratus. We  knew  that  he  was  looking  for  his 
purse. 

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"We  should  like  also  very  much/'  we  said, 
"to  Insert  your  picture  along  with  the  arti- 
cle  " 

"Would  that  cost  much?"  he  asked. 

"No,  that  is  only  five  dollars." 

The  Professor  had  meantime  found  his 
purse. 

"W'ould  it  be  all  right,"  he  began,  "that  Is, 
would  you  mind  If  I  pay  you  the  money  now? 
I  am  apt  to  forget." 

"Quite  all  right,"  we  answered.  We  said 
good-bye  very  gently  and  passed  out.  We  felt 
somehow  as  If  we  had  touched  a  higher  life. 
"Such,"  we  murmured,  as  we  looked  about  the 
ancient  campus,  "are  the  men  of  science:  are 
there,  perhaps,  any  others  of  them  round  this 
morning  that  we  might  interview?" 


157 


Frenzied  Fiction 


IV 

WITH  OU^  TYPICAL  NOVELISTS 

[Edwin  and  Ethelinda  Afterthought — Husband 
and  Wife — In  Their  Delightful  Home  Life'\ 

It  was  at  their  beautiful  country  place  on  the 
Woonagansett  that  we  had  the  pleasure  of  in- 
terviewing the  Afterthoughts.  At  their  own 
cordial  invitation,  we  had  walked  over  from  the 
nearest  railway  station,  a  distance  of  some 
fourteen  miles.  Indeed,  as  soon  as  they  heard 
of  our  intention  they  invited  us  to  walk.  "We 
are  so  sorry  not  to  bring  you  in  the  motor," 
they  wrote,  "but  the  roads  are  so  frightfully 
dusty  that  we  might  get  dust  on  our  chauffeur." 
This  little  touch  of  thoughtfulness  is  the  key- 
note of  their  character. 

"The^hduse  itself  is  a  delightful  old  mansion 
giving  on  a  wide  garden,  which  gives  in  turn 
on  a  broad  terrace  giving  on  the  river. 

The  Eminent  Novelist  met  us  at  the  gate. 
We  had  expected  to  find  the  author  of  Angela 

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Rivers  and  The  Garden  of  Desire  a  pale 
aesthetic  type  (we  have  a  way  of  expecting 
the  wrong  thing  In  our  Interviews).  We  could 
not  resist  a  shock  of  surprise  (Indeed  we  sel- 
dom do)  at  finding  him  a  burly  out-of-door 
man  weighing,  as  he  himself  told  us,  a  hundred 
stone  in  his  stockinged  feet  (we  think  he  said 
stone). 

He  shook  hands  cordially. 

"Come  and  see  my  pigs,"  he  said. 

"We  wanted  to  ask  you,"  we  began,  as  we 
went  down  the  walk,  "something  about  your 
books." 

"Let's  look  at  the  pigs  first,"  he  said.  "Are 
you  anything  of  a  pig  man?" 

We  are  always  anxious  In  our  interviews  to 
be  all  things  to  all  men.  But  we  were  com- 
pelled to  admit  that  we  were  not  much  of 
a  pig  man. 

"Ah  I"  said  the  Great  Novelist,  "perhaps 
you  are  more  of  a  dog  man?" 

"Not  altogether  a  dog  man,"  we  answered. 

"Anything  of  a  bee  man?"  he  asked. 
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*'Something,"  we  said  (we  were  once  stung 
by  a  bee). 

"Ah!"  he  said,  "you  shall  have  a  go  at  the 
bee  hives,  then,  right  away?" 

We   assured  him  that  we  were   wilhng  to 
postpone  a  goat  the  bee  hives  till  later. 
'^^^Come  along,  then,  to  the  styes,     said  the 
Great     Novelist,     and    he     added — "perhaps 
you're  not  much  of  a  breeder." 

We  blushed.  We  thought  of  the  five  little 
faces  around  the  table  for  which  we  provide 
food  by  writing  our  interviews. 

"No,"  we  said,  "we  were  not  much  of  a 
breeder." 

"Now  then,"  said  the  Great  Novelist  as  we 
reached  our  goal,  "how  do  you  like  this  stye?" 

"Very  much  indeed,"  we   said. 

"IVe  put  in  a  new  tile  draining — my  own 
plan.    You  notice  how  sweet  it  keeps  the  stye." 

We  had  not  noticed  this. 

"I  am  afraid,"  said  the  Novelist,  "that  the 
pigs  are  all  asleep  inside." 

We   begged  him   on   no   account  to   waken 
them.     He  offered  to  open  the  little  door  at 
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the  side  and  let  us  crawl  in.  We  insisted  that 
we  could  not  think  of  intruding. 
-  "What  we  would  like/'  we  said,  "is  to  hear 
something  of  your  methods  of  work  In  novel 
writing."  We  said  this  with  very  peculiar  con- 
viction. Quite  apart  from  the  immediate  pur- 
poses of  our  Interview,  we  have  always  been 
most  anxious  to  know  by  what  process  novels 
are  written.  If  we  could  get  to  know  this,  we 
would  write  one  ourselves. 

"Come  and  see  my  bulls  first,"  said  the 
Novelist.  "IVe  got  a  couple  of  young  bulls 
here  In  the  paddock  that  will  Interest  you." 

We  felt  sure  that  they  would. 

He  led  us  to  a  little  green  fence.  Inside  it 
were  two  ferocious  looking  animals,  eating 
grain.  They  rolled  their  eyes  upwards  at  us 
as  they  ate. 

"How  do  those  strike  you?"  he  asked. 

We  assured  him  that  they  struck  us  as  our 
beau  Ideal  of  bulls. 

"Like   to  walk  in  beside  them?"   said  the 
Novelist,  opening  a  little  gate. 
i6i 


Frenzied  Fiction 


We  drew  back.  Was  it  fair  to  disturb  these 
bulls? 

The  Great  Novelist  noticed  our  hesitation. 

*'Don't  be  afraid,"  he  said.  "They're  not 
likely  to  harm  you.  I  send  my  hired  man  right 
in  beside  them  every  morning,  without  the 
slightest  hesitation." 

We  looked  at  the  Eminent  Novelist  with 
admiration.  We  realised  that  like  so  many  of 
our  writers,  actors,  and  even  our  thinkers,  of 
to-day,  he  was  an  open-air  man  in  every  sense 
of  the  word. 

But  we  shook  our  heads. 

Bulls,  we  explained,  were  not  a  department 
of  research  for  which  we  were  equipped. 
What  we  wanted,  we  said,  was  to  learn  some- 
thing of  his  methods  of  work. 

"My  methods  of  work?"  he  answered,  as 
we  turned  up  the  path  again.  "Well,  really, 
I  hardly  know  that  I  have  any." 

"What  Is  your  plan  or  methodf"  we  asked, 
getting  out  our  note  book  and  pencil,  "of  lay- 
ing the  beginning  of  a  new  novel?" 

"My  usual  plan,"  said  the  Novelist,  "is  to 
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come  out  here  and  sit  in  the  stye  till  I  get  my? 
characters." 

"Does  it  take  long?"  we  questioned. 

"Not  very.  I  generally  find  that  a  quiet 
half-hour  spent  among  the  hogs  will  give  me 
at  least  my  leading  character." 

"And  what  do  you  do  next?" 

"Oh,  after  that  I  generally  light  a  pipe  and 
go  and  sit  among  the  bee  hives  looking  for  an 
incident." 

"Do  you  gtt  it?"  we  asked. 

"Invariably.  After  that  I  make  a  few  notes, 
then  go  off  for  a  ten  mile  tramp  with  my 
esquimaux  dogs,  and  gtt  back  in  time  to  have 
a  go  through  the  cattle  sheds  and  take  a  romp 
with  the  young  bulls." 

We  sighed.  We  couldn't  help  it.  Novel 
writing  seemed   further   away  than   ever. 

"Have  you  also  a  goat  on  the  premises?" 
we  asked. 

"Oh,  certainly.  A  ripping  old  fellow — come 
along  and  see  him." 

We  shook  our  heads.     No  doubt  our  dis- 
appointment  showed   in    our   face.      It   often 
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Frenzied  Fiction 


does.  We  felt  that  it  was  altogether  right  and 
wholesome  that  our  great  novels  of  to-day 
should  be  written  in  this  fashion  with  the  help 
of  goats,  dogs,  hogs  and  young  bulls.  But  we 
feltj^too,  that  it  was  not  for  us. 

We  permitted  ourselves  one  further  ques- 
tion. 

"At  what  time,'*  we  said,  "do  you  rise  in  the 
morning?" 

"Oh  anywhere  between  four  and  five,"  said 
the  Novelist. 

"Ah!  and  do  you  generally  take  a  cold  dip 
as  soon  as  you  are  up — even  in  winter?" 

"I  do." 

"You  prefer,  no  doubt,"  we  said,  with  a  de- 
jection that  we  could  not  conceal,  "to  have 
water  with  a  good  coat  of  ice  over  it?" 

"Oh,  certainly!" 

We  said  no  more.  We  have  long  under- 
stood the  reasons  for  our  own  failure  in  life, 
but  it  was  painful  to  receive  a  renewed  cor- 
roboration of  it.  This  ice  question  has  stood 
in  our  way  for  forty-seven  years. 
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The  Great  Novelist  seemed  to  note  our  de- 
jection. 

"Come  to  the  house,"  he  said,  "my  wife 
will  give  you  a  cup  of  tea." 

In  a  few  moments  we  had  forgotten  all  our 
troubles  in  the  presence  of  one  of  the  most 
charming  chatelaines  it  has  been  our  lot  to 
meet. 

We  sat  on  a  low  stool  immediately  beside 
Ethelinda  Afterthought,  who  presided  in  her 
own  gracious  fashion  over  the  tea  urn. 

"So  you  want  to  know  something  of  my 
methods  of  work?"  she  said,  as  she  poured 
hot  tea  over  our  leg. 

"We  do,"  we  answered,  taking  out  our  little 
book  and  recovering  something  of  our  enthu- 
siasm. We  do  not  mind  hot  tea  being  poured 
over  us  if  people  treat  us  as  a  human  being. 

"Can  you  indicate,"  we  continued,  "what 
method  you  follow  in  beginning  one  of  your 
novels?" 

"I  always  begin,"  said  EtheHnda  After- 
thought, "with  a  study." 

"A  study?"   we   queried. 

165 


Frenzied  Fiction 


*'Yes.  I  mean  a  study  of  actual  facts.  Take, 
for  example,  my  Leaves  from  the  Life  of  a 
Steam  Laundrywoman — more  tea?" 

"No,  no,"  we  said. 

"Well,  to  make  that  book  I  first  worked  two 
years  in  a  laundry." 

"Two  years!"  we  exclaimed.     "And  why?" 

"To  get  the  atmosphere." 

"The  steam?"  we  questioned. 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Mrs.  Afterthought,  "I  did 
that  separately.  I  took  a  course  in  steam  at  a 
technical  school." 

"Is  it  possible?"  we  said,  our  heart  be- 
ginning to  sink  again.  "Was  all  that  neces- 
sary?" 

"I  don't  see  how  one  could  do  it  otherwise. 
The  story  opens,  as  no  doubt  you  remember 
— tea? — in  the  boiler  room  of  the  laundry." 

"Yes,"  we  said,  moving  our  leg, — "no, 
thank  you." 

"So  you  see  the  only  possible  point  d'appiii 
was  to  begin  with  a  description  of  the  inside 
of  the  boiler." 

We  nodded.  "A  masterly  thing,"  we  said. 
i66 


Ideal  Interviews 


*'My  wife,"  interrupted  the  Great  Novelist, 
who  was  sitting  with  the  head  of  a  huge  Danish 
hound  in  his  lap,  sharing  his  buttered  toast  with 
the  dog  while  he  adjusted  a  set  of  trout  flies, 
"is  a  great  worker." 

''Do  you  ahvays  work  on  that  method?"  we 
asked. 

"Always,"  she  answered.  "For  Federica  of 
the  Factory  I  spent  six  months  in  a  knitting 
mill.  For  Marguerite  of  the  Mud  Flats  I 
made  special  studies  for  months  and  months.'* 

"Of  what  sort?"  we  asked. 

"In  mud.  Learning  to  model  it.  You  see 
for  a  story  of  that  sort  the  first  thing  needed 
is  a  thorough  knowledge  of  mud — all  kinds 
of  it." 

"And  what  are  you  doing  next?"  we  in- 
quired. 

"My  next  book,"  said  the  Lady  Novelist, 
"is  to  be  a  study — tea? — of  the  pickle  industry 
— perfectly  new  ground." 

"A  fascinating  field,"  we  murmured. 

"And  quite  new.  Several  of  our  writers 
have  done  the  slaughter  house,  and  in  England 
167 


Frenzied  Fiction 


a  good  deal  has  been  done  in  jam.  But  so 
far  no  one  has  done  pickles.  I  should  like, 
if  I  could,"  added  Ethelinda  Afterthought, 
with  the  graceful  modesty  that  is  characteristic 
of  her,  "to  make  it  the  first  of  a  series  of  pickle 
novels,  showing,  don't  you  know,  the  whole 
pickle  district,  and  perhaps  following  a  family 
of  pickle  workers  for  four  or  five  generations." 

"Four  or  five!"  we  said  enthusiastically. 
"Make  it  ten!  And  have  you  any  plan  for 
work  beyond  that?" 

"Oh,  yes  indeed,"  laughed  the  Lady  Novel- 
ist. "I  am  always  planning  ahead.  What  I 
want  to  do  after  that  is  a  study  of  the  inside 
of  a  penitentiary." 

"Of  the  inside  f'  we  said,  with  a  shudder. 

"Yes.  To  do  it,  of  course,  I  shall  go  to  jail 
for  two  or  three  years!" 

"But  how  can  you  get  in?"  we  asked, 
thrilled  at  the  quiet  determination  of  the  frail 
woman  before  us. 

"I  shall  demand  it  as  a  right,"  she  answered 
quietly.     "I  shall  go  to  the  authorities,  at  the 
head  of  a  band  of  enthusiastic  women,  and  de- 
i68 


Ideal  Interviews 


mand  that  I  shall  be  sent  to  jail.  Surely  after 
the  work  I  have  done,  that  much  is  coming  to 
me." 

"It  certainly  is,"  we  said  warmly. 

We  rose  to  go. 

Both  the  novelists  shook  hands  with  us  with 
great  cordiality.  Mr.  Afterthought  walked 
as  far  as  the  front  door  with  us  and  showed 
us  a  short  cut  past  the  bee  hives,  that  could 
take  us  directly  through  the  bull  pasture  to 
the  main  road. 

We  walked  away  in  the  gathering  darkness 
of  evening,  very  quietly.  We  made  up  our 
mind  as  we  went  that  novel  writing  is  not  for 
us.  We  must  reach  the  penitentiary  in  some 
other  way. 

But  we  thought  it  well  to  set  down  our  inter- 
view as  a  guide  to  others. 


169 


IX.— The  New  Education 

SO  you're  going  back  to  college  in  a  fort- 
night,"  I   said   to   the    Bright   Young 
Thing  on  the  verandah  of  the  summer 
hotel.     "Aren't  you  sorry?" 
**In  a  way  I  am,"  she  said,  "but  in  another 
sense  I'm  glad  to  go  back.     One  can't  loaf  all 
the  time." 

She  looked  up  from  her  rocking  chair  over 

her  Red  Cross  knitting  with  great  earnestness. 

How  full  of  purpose  these  modern  students 

are,  I  thought  to  myself.     In  my  time  we  used 

to  go  back  to  college  as  to  a  treadmill. 

"I  know  that,"  I  said,  "but  what  I  mean  is 
that  college,  after  all,  is  a  pretty  hard  grind. 
Things  like  mathematics  and  Greek  are  no  joke, 
are  they?  In  my  day,  as  I  remember  it,  we 
used  to  think  spherical  trigonometry  about  the 
hardest  stuff  of  the  lot." 
She  looked  dubious. 

170 


The  New  Education 


^'I  didn't  elect  mathematics,"  she  said. 

"Oh,"  I  said,  "I  see.  So  you  don't  have  to 
take  it.    And  what  have  you  elected?" 

"For  this  coming  half  semester — that's  six 
weeks,  you  know — I've  elected  Social  Endeav- 
our." 

"Ah,"  I  said,  "that's  since  my  day,  what  Is 
it?" 

"Oh,  it's  awfully  interesting.  It's  the  study 
of  conditions." 

"What  kind  of  conditions?"  I  asked. 

"All  conditions.  Perhaps  I  can't  explain  it 
properly.  But  I  have  the  prospectus  of  it  in- 
doors if  you'd  like  to  see  it.  We  take  up  So- 
ciety." 

"And  what  do  you  do  with  it?" 

"Analyse  It,"  she  said. 

"But  It  must  mean  reading  a  tremendous  lot 
of  books." 

"No,"  she  answered.  "We  don't  use  books 
in  this  course.     It's  all  Laboratory  Work." 

"Now  I  am  mystified,"  I  said,  "what  do  you 
mean  by  Laboratory  Work?" 

"Well,"  answered  the  girl  student  with  a 
171 


Frenzied  Fiction 


thoughtful  look  upon  her  face.  "You  see,  we 
are  supposed  to  break  society  up  into  its  ele- 
ments." 

"In  six  weeks?" 

"Some  of  the  girls  do  it  in  six  weeks.  Some 
put  in  a  whole  semester  and  take  twelve  weeks 
at  it." 

"So  as  to  break  up  pretty  thoroughly?"  I 
said. 

"Yes,"  she  assented,  "but  most  of  the  girls 
think  six  weeks  is  enough." 

"That  ought  to  pulverise  it  pretty  completely. 
But  how  do  you  go  at  it?" 

"Well,"  the  girl  said,  "it's  all  done  with 
Laboratory  Work.  We  take,  for  instance,  de- 
partment stores.  I  think  that  is  the  first  thing 
we  do;  we  take  up  the  department  store." 

"And  what  do  you  do  with  it?" 

"We  study  it  as  a  Social  Germ." 

"Ah!"  I  said,  "as  a  Social  Germ." 

"Yes,"  said  the  girl,  delighted  to  see  that  I 
was  beginning  to  understand,  "as  a  Germ.  All 
the  work  is  done  in  the  concrete.  The  class 
172 


The  New  Education 


goes  down  with  the  professor  to  the  department 
store  Itself '* 


"And  then- 


"Then  they  walk  all  through  It,  observing." 
"But  have  none  of  them  ever  been  In  a  de- 
partmental store  before?" 

"Oh,  of  course,  but,  you  see,  we  go  as  Ob- 


servers." 


"Ah,  now,  I  understand.  You  mean  you 
don't  buy  anything  and  so  you  are  able  to  watch 
everything?" 

"No,"  she  said,  "It's  not  that.  We  do  buy 
things.  That's  part  of  It.  Most  of  the  girls 
like  to  buy  little  knick-knacks  and  anyway  It 
gives  them  a  good  chance  to  do  their  shopping 
while  they're  there.  But  while  they  are  there 
they  are  observing.  Then  afterwards  they  make 
charts." 

"Charts  of  what?"  I  asked. 

"Charts  of  the  employees;  t*^ey're  used  to 
show  the  brain  movement  involved." 

"Do  you  find  much?" 

"Well,"  she  said  hesitatingly,  "the  Idea  Is  to 
reduce  all  the  employees  to  a  Curve." 

173 


Frenzied  Fiction 


"To  a  Curve?''  I  exclaimed,  "an  In  or  an 
Out." 

"No,  no,  not  exactly  that.  Didn't  you  use 
Curves  when  you  were  at  college?" 

"Never,"  I  said. 

"Oh,  well,  nowadays  nearly  everything,  you 
know,  is  done  into  a  Curve.  We  put  them  on 
the  board." 

"And  what  is  this  particular  Curve  of  the 
employee  used  for?"     I  asked. 

"Why,"  said  the  student,  "the  Idea  is  that 
from  the  Curve  we  can  get  the  Norm  of  the 
employee." 

"Get  his  Norm?"  I  asked. 

"Yes,  get  the  Norm.  That  stands  for  the 
Root  Form  of  the  employee  as  a  social  factor." 

"And  what  can  you  do  with  that?" 

"Oh,  when  we  have  that  we  can  tell  what  the 
employee  would  do  under  any  and  every  circum- 
stance. At  least  that's  the  idea, — though  I'm 
really  only  quoting,"  she  added,  breaking  off 
in  a  diffident  way,  "from  what  Miss  Thinker, 
the  professor  of  Social  Endeavour,  says.  She's 
really  fine.  She's  making  a  general  chart  of 
174 


The  New  Education 


the  female  employees  of  one  of  the  biggest 
stores  to  show  what  percentage  In  case  of  fire 
would  jump  out  of  window  and  what  percentage 
would  run  to  the  fire  escape." 

*'It's  a  wonderful  course,"  I  said,  "we  had 
nothing  like  it  when  I  went  to  college.  And 
does  it  only  take  in  departmental  stores?" 

"No,"  said  the  girl,  "the  laboratory  work 
includes  for  this  semester  ice-cream  parlours  as 
well." 

"What  do  you  do  with  themf 

"We  take  them  up  as  Social  Cells,  Nuclei,  I 
think  the  professor  calls  them." 

"And  how  do  you  go  at  them?"  I  asked. 

"Why,  the  girls  go  to  them  in  little  labora- 
tory groups  and  study  them." 

"They  eat  Ice-cream  In  them?" 

"They  have  to,"  she  said,  "to  make  it  con- 
crete. But  while  they  are  doing  it  they  are 
considering  the  Ice-cream  parlour  merely  as  a 
section  of  social  protoplasm." 

"Does  the  professor  go?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  yes,  she  heads  each  group.     Professor 
Thinker  never  spares  herself  from  work." 
175 


Frenzied  Fiction 


*'Dear  me!"  I  said,  "you  must  be  kept  very 
busy.  And  is  Social  Endeavour  all  that  you 
are  going  to  do?" 

**No,"  she  answered,  'Tm  electing  a  half- 
course  in  Nature  Work  as  well." 

"Nature  Work?  Well!  well!  That,  I  sup- 
pose, means  cramming  up  a  lot  of  biology  and 
zoology,  does  it  not?" 

"No,"  said  the  girl,  "it's  not  exactly  done 
with  hooks.  I  believe  it  is  all  done  by  Field 
Work." 

"Field  Work?" 

"Yes,  Field  Work  four  times  a  week  and  an 
Excursion  every  Saturday." 

"And  what  do  you  do  in  the  Field  Work?" 

"The  girls,"  she  answered,  "go  out  in  groups 
anywhere  out  of  doors,  and  make  a  Nature 
Study  of  anything  they  see." 

"How  do  they  do  that?"  I  asked. 

"Why,  they  look  at  it.  Suppose,  for  exam- 
ple, they  come  to  a  stream  or  a  pond  or  any- 
thing  " 


Tes " 

176 


The  New  Education 


''Well,  they  look  at  It." 

"Had  they  never  done  that  before?"  I  asked. 

"Ah,  but  they  look  at  It  as  a  Nature  Unit. 
Each  girl  must  take  forty  units  In  the  course. 
I  think  we  only  do  one  unit  each  day  we  go 
out." 

"It  must,"  I  said,  "be  pretty  fatiguing  work, 
and  what  about  the  Excursion?" 

"That's  every  Saturday.  We  go  out  with 
Miss  Stalk,  the  professor  of  Ambulation." 

"And  where  do  you  go?" 

"Oh,  anywhere.  One  day  we  go  perhaps  for 
a  trip  on  a  steamer  and  another  Saturday  some- 
where In  motors,  and  so  on." 

"Doing  what?"  I  asked. 

"Field  Work.  The  aim  of  the  course, — Vm 
afraid  I'm  quoting  Miss  Stalk  but  I  don't  mind, 
she's  really  fine, — is  to  break  nature  into  its 
elements " 

^♦I  see " 


"So  as  to  view  It  as  the  external  structure  of 
Society  and  make  deductions  from  It." 
"Have  you  made  any?"  I  asked. 
"Oh,  no,"   she  laughed,   "I'm  only  starting 
177 


Frenzied  Fiction 


the  work  this  term.  But,  of  course,  I  shall  have 
to.  Each  girl  makes  at  least  one  deduction  at 
the  end  of  the  course.  Some  of  the  seniors 
make  two  or  three.  But  you  have  to  make 
one.'* 

"It's  a  great  course,"  I  said.  "No  wonder 
you  are  going  to  be  busy;  and  as  you  say,  how 
much  better  than  loafing  round  here  doing  noth- 
ing." 

"Isn't  It?"  said  the  girl  student  with  enthusi- 
asm In  her  eyes,  ''it  gives  one  such  a  sense  of 
purpose,  such  a  feeling  of  doing  something." 

"It  must,"  I  answered. 

"Oh,  goodness,"  she  exclaimed,  "there's  the 
lunch  bell.     I  must  skip  and  get  ready." 

She  was  just  vanishing  irom  my  side  when 
the  Burly  Male  Student,  who  was  also  staying 
in  the  hotel,  came  puffing  up  after  his  five-mile 
run.  He  was  getting  himself  Into  trim  for  en- 
listment, so  he  told  me.  He  noted  the  retreat- 
ing form  of  the  college  girl  as  he  sat  down. 

"I've  just  been  talking  to  her,"  I  said,  "about 
her  college  work.     She  seems  to  be  studying  a 

178 


The  New  Education 


queer  lot  of  stuff, — Social  Endeavour  and  all 
that!" 

"Awful  piffle,"  said  the  young  man,  *'but  the 
girls  naturally  run  to  all  that  sort  of  rot,  you 
know." 

*'Now,  your  work,"  I  went  on,  **is  no  doubt 
very  different.  I  mean  what  you  were  taking 
before  the  war  came  along.  I  suppose  you  fel- 
lows have  an  awful  dose  of  mathematics  and 
philology  and  so  on  just  as  I  did  In  my  college 
days?" 

Something  like  a  blush  came  across  the  face 
of  the  handsome  youth. 

"Well,  no,"  he  said,  "I  didn't  co-opt  mathe- 
matics. At  our  college,  you  know,  we  co-opt 
two  majors  and  two  minors." 

"I  see,"  I  said,  "and  what  were  you  co-opt- 
Ing?" 

"I  co-opted  Turkish,  Music,  and  Religion," 
he  answered. 

"Oh,  yes,"  I  said  with  a  sort  of  reverential 
respect,  "fitting  yourself  for  a  position  of  choir- 
master in  a  Turkish  cathedral,  no  doubt." 

"No,  no,"  he  said,  "I'm  going  into  insurance; 
179 


Frenzied  Fiction 


but,  you  see,  those  subjects  fitted  in  better  than 
anything  else." 

''Fitted  in?" 

"Yes.  Turkish  comes  at  nine,  music  at  ten 
and  religion  at  eleven.  So  they  make  a  good 
combination;  they  leave  a  man  free  to " 


"To  develop  his  mind,"  I  said,  "we  used  to 
find  in  my  college  days  that  lectures  interfered 
with  it  badly.  But  now,  Turkish,  that  must  be 
an  interesting  language,  eh?" 

"Search  me!"  said  the  student.  "All  you 
have  to  do  is  answer  the  roll  and  go  out.  Forty 
roll-calls  give  you  one  Turkish  unit, — ^but,  say, 
I  must  get  on,  Fve  got  to  change.     So  long." 

I  could  not  help  reflecting,  as  the  young  man 
left  me,  on  the  great  changes  that  have  come 
over  our  college  education.  It  was  a  relief  to 
me  later  in  the  day  to  talk  with  a  quiet,  sombre 
man,  himself  a  graduate  student  in  philosophy, 
on  this  topic.  He  agreed  with  me  that  the  old 
strenuous  studies  seem  to  be  very  largely  aban- 
doned. 

I  looked  at  the  sombre  man  with  respect. 

"Now  your  work,"  I  said,  "is  very  different 
i8o 


The  New  Education 


from  what  these  young  people  are  doing, — 
hard,  solid,  definite  effort.  What  a  reUef  it 
must  be  to  you  to  get  a  brief  vacation  up  here. 
I  couldn't  help  thinking  to-day  as  I  watched  you 
moving  round  doing  nothing,  how  fine  it  must 
feel  for  you  to  come  up  here  after  your  hard 
work  and  put  in  a  month  of  out-and-out  loafing." 

"Loafing!"  he  said  indignantly,  'Tm  not 
loafing.  I'm  putting  in  a  half  summer  course 
in  Introspection.  That's  why  I'm  here.  I  get 
credit  for  two  majors  for  my  time  here." 

*'AhI"  I  said,  as  gently  as  I  could,  "you  get 
credit  here." 

He  left  me.  I  am  still  pondering  over  our 
new  education.  Meantime  I  think  I  shall  enter 
my  little  boy's  name  on  the  books  of  Tuskegee 
College  where  the  education  is  still  old-fash- 
ioned. 


i8i 


X, — The  Errors  of  Santa  Clans 

IJl  was  Christmas  Eve. 
The  Browns,  who  lived  in  the  adjoin- 
ing   house,    had    been    dining    with    the 
Joneses. 
Brown  and  Jones  w^ere  sitting  over  wine  and 
walnuts  at  the  table.     The  others  had  gone  up- 
stairs. 

"What  are  you  giving  to  your  boy  for  Christ- 
mas?" asked  Brown. 

"A  train,"  said  Jones,  "new  kind  of  thing — 
automatic." 

"Let's  have  a  look  at  it,"  said  Brown. 
Jones  fetched  a  parcel  from  the  sideboard 
and  began  unwrapping  it. 

"Ingenious  thing,  isn't  it?"  he  said,  "goes 
on  its  own  rails.  Queer  how  kids  love  to  play 
with  trains,  isn't  it?" 

"Yes,"  assented  Brown,  "how  are  the  rails 
fixed?" 

182 


The  Errors  of  Santa  Claus 

*'Wait,  I'll  show  you,"  said  Jones,  ^'just  help 
me  to  shove  these  dinner  things  aside  and  roll 
back  the  cloth.  There !  See !  You  lay  the 
rails  like  that  and  fasten  them  at  the  ends, 


so- 


*'0h,  yes,  I  catch  on,  makes  a  grade,  doesn't 
It?  Just  the  thing  to  amuse  a  child.  Isn't  it? 
I  got  Willie  a  toy  aeroplane." 

''I  know,  they're  great.  I  got  Edwin  one  on 
his  birthday.  But  I  thought  Td  get  him  a  train 
this  time.  I  told  him  Santa  Claus  was  going 
to  bring  him  something  altogether  new  this 
time.  Edwin,  of  course,  believes  in  Santa 
Claus  absolutely.  Say,  look  at  this  locomotive, 
would  you?  It  has  a  spring  colled  up  Inside 
the  fire  box." 

"Wind  her  up,"  said  Brown  with  great  In- 
terest, "let's  see  her  go." 

''All  right,"  said  Jones,  "just  pile  up  two  or 
three  plates  or  something  to  lean  the  end  of  the 
rails  on.  There,  notice  the  way  it  buzzes  be- 
fore it  starts.  Isn't  that  a  great  thing  for  a 
kid,  eh?" 

"Yes,"  said  Brown,  "and  say!  see  this  little 

183 


Frenzied  Fiction 


string  to  pull  the  whistle.     By  Gad,  it  toots, 
eh?     Just  like  real?" 

*'Now  then,  Brown,"  Jones  went  on,  "you 
hitch  on  those  cars  and  I'll  start  her.  I'll  be 
engineer,  eh!" 

Half  an  hour  later  Brown  and  Jones  were 
still  playing  trains  on  the  dining-room  table. 

But  their  wives  upstairs  in  the  drawing  room 
hardly  noticed  their  absence.  They  were  too 
much  interested. 

"Oh,  I  think  it's  perfectly  sweet,"  said  Mrs. 
Brown,  "just  the  loveliest  doll  I've  seen  in 
years.  I  must  get  one  like  it  for  Ulvina. 
Won't  Clarisse  be  perfectly  enchanted?" 

"Yes,"  answered  Mrs.  Jones,  "and  then  she'll 
have  all  the  fun  of  arranging  the  dresses.  Chil- 
dren love  that  so  much.  Look!  there  are  three 
little  dresses  with  the  doll,  aren't  they  cute? 
All  cut  out  and  ready  to  stitch  together." 

"Oh,  how  perfectly  lovely,"  exclaimed  Mrs. 

Brown,  "I  think  the  mauve  one  would  suit  the 

doll  best — don't  you? — with  such  golden  hair 

— only  don't  you  think  it  would  make  It  much 

184 


The  Errors  of  Santa  Claus 

nicer  to  turn  back  the  collar,  so,  and  to  put  a 
little  band — so?" 

^'WJiat  a  good  idea!"  said  Mrs.  Jones,  *'do 
let's  try  it.  Just  wait,  I'll  get  a  needle  In  a 
minute.  I'll  tell  Clarisse  that  Santa  Claus 
sewed  it  himself.  The  child  believes  in  Santa 
Claus  absolutely." 

And  half  an  hour  later  Mrs.  Jones  and  Mrs. 
Brown  were  so  busy  stitching  dolls'  clothes  that 
they  could  not  hear  the  roaring  of  the  little  train 
up  and  down  the  dining  table,  and  had  no  Idea 
what  the  four  children  were  doing. 

Nor  did  the  children  miss  their  mothers. 

"Dandy,  aren't  they?"  Edwin  Jones  was  say- 
ing to  little  Willie  Brown,  as  they  sat  In  Edwin's 
bedroom.  *^A  hundred  In  a  box,  with  cork 
tips,  and  see,  an  amber  mouthpiece  that  fits  Into 
a  little  case  at  the  side.  Good  present  for  dad, 
eh?" 

"Fine !"  said  Willie,  appreciatively,  "I'm  giv- 
ing father  cigars." 

"I  know,  I  thought  of  cigars  too.  Men  al- 
ways like  cigars  and  cigarettes.  You  can't  go 
i8s 


Frenzied  Fiction 


wrong  on  them.  Say,  would  you  like  to  try 
one  or  two  of  these  cigarettes?  We  can  take 
them  from  the  bottom.  You'll  like  them, 
they're   Russian, — away  ahead  of  Egyptian." 

"Thanks,"  answered  Willie.  "I'd  like  one 
immensely.  I  only  started  smoking  last  spring 
— on  my  twelfth  birthday.  I  think  a  feller's 
a  fool  to  begin  smoking  cigarettes  too  soon, 
don't  you?  It  stunts  him.  I  waited  till  I  was 
twelve." 

"Me  too,"  said  Edwin,  as  they  lighted  their 
cigarettes.  "In  fact,  I  wouldn't  buy  them  now 
if  it  weren't  for  dad.  I  simply  had  to  give  him 
something  from  Santa  Claus.  He  believes  in 
Santa  Claus  absolutely,  you  know." 

And  while  this  was  going  on,  Clarisse  was 
showing  little  Ulvlna  the  absolutely  lovely  little 
bridge  set  that  she  got  for  her  mother.  "Aren't 
these  markers  perfectly  charming?"  said  Ul- 
vina,  "and  don't  you  love  this  little  Dutch  de- 
sign— or  is  it  Flemish,  darling?" 

"Dutch,"  said  Clarisse,  "isn't  it  quaint?  And 
aren't  these  the  dearest  little  things — for  put- 
i86 


The  Errors  of  Santa  Claus 

ting  the  money  In  when  you  play.  I  needn^t 
have  got  them  with  it — they'd  have  sold  the 
rest  separately — but  I  think  it's  too  utterly  slow 
playing  without  money,  don't  you?" 

"Oh,  abominable,"  shuddered  Ulvina,  "but 
your  mamma  never  plays  for  money,  does  she?" 

"Mamma !  Oh,  gracious,  no.  Mamma's 
far  too  slow  for  that.  But  I  shall  tell  her  that 
Santa  Claus  insisted  on  putting  in  the  little 
money  boxes." 

"I  suppose  she  believes  in  Santa  Claus,  just 
as  my  Mamma  does." 

"Oh,  absolutely,"  said  Clarlsse,  and  added, 
"What  If  we  play  a  little  game !  With  a  dou- 
ble dummy,  the  French  way,  or  Norwegian 
Skat,  if  you  like.     That  only  needs  two." 

"All  right,"  agreed  Ulvina,  and  In  a  few 
minutes  they  were  deep  in  a  game  of  cards  with 
a  little  pile  of  pocket  money  beside  them. 

About  half  an  hour  later,  all  the  members 
of  the  two  families  were  down  again  In  the 
drawing  room.  But  of  course  nobody  said 
anything  about  the  presents.     In  any  case  they 

187 


Frenzied  Fiction 


were  all  too  busy  looking  at  the  beautiful  big 
Bible,  with  maps  in  it,  that  the  Joneses  had 
bought  to  give  to  Grandfather.  They  all 
agreed  that  with  the  help  of  it,  Grandfather 
could  hunt  up  any  place  in  Palestine  in  a  mo- 
ment, day  or  night. 

But  upstairs,  away  upstairs  in  a  sitting  room 
of  his  own,  Grandfather  Jones  was  looking  with 
an  affectionate  eye  at  the  presents  that  stood 
beside  him.  There  was  a  beautiful  whiskey 
decanter,  with  silver  filigree  outside  (and  whis- 
key inside)  for  Jones,  and  for  the  little  boy 
a  big  nickel-plated  Jew's  harp. 

Later  on,  far  in  the  night,  the  person,  or  the 
influence,  or  whatever  it  is  called  Santa  Claus, 
took  all  the  presents  and  placed  them  in  the 
people's  stockings. 

And,  being  blind  as  he  always  has  been,  he 
gave  the  wrong  things  to  the  wrong  people — 
in  fact,  he  gave  them  just  as  indicated  above. 

But  the  next  day,  in  the  course  of  Christmas 
morning,  the  situation  straightened  itself  out, 
just  as  it  always  does. 

*i88 


The  Errors  of  Santa  Clau^ 

Indeed,  by  ten  o'clock,  Brown  and  Jones  were 
playing  with  the  train,  and  Mrs.  Brown  and 
Mrs.  Jones  were  making  dolls'  clothes,  and  the 
boys  were  smoking  cigarettes,  and  Clarlsse  and 
Ulvlna  were  playing  cards  for  their  pocket 
money. 

And  upstairs — away  up — Grandfather  was 
drinking  whiskey  and  playing  the  Jew's  harp. 

And  so  Christmas,  just  as  it  always  does, 
turned  out  all  right  after  all. 


189 


XL— Lost  in  New  York— 
A  Visitor  s  Soliloquy 

WELL!     Well! 
Whatever   has   been  happening 
to    this    place,     to    New    York? 
Changed?     Changed  since   I  was 
here  In  '86?    Well,  I  should  say  so. 

The  hack-driver  of  the  old  days  that  I  used 
to  find  waiting  for  me  at  the  station  curb,  with 
that  impossible  horse  of  his — the  hack-driver 
with  his  bulbous  red  face,  and  the  nice  smell  of 
rye  whiskey  all  'round  him  for  yards — gone,  so 
it  seems,  forever. 

And  In  place  of  him  this — what  Is  It  they 
call  It? — this  taxi — with  a  clean-shaven  cut- 
throat steering  It.  ''Get  In,"  he  says.  Just 
that.  He  doesn't  offer  to  help  me  or  lift  my 
satchel.  All  right,  young  man,  I'm  crawling  in. 
That's  the  machine  that  marks  it,  eh?  I 
190 


Lost  in  New  York — A  Visitor's  Soliloquy 

suppose  they  have  them  rigged  up  so  they  can 
punch  up  anything  they  like.  I  thought  so — he 
hits  it  up  to  fifty  cents  before  we  start.  But  I 
saw  him  do  it.  Well,  I  can  stand  for  it  this 
time.     I'll  not  be  caught  In  one  of  these  again. 

The  hotel?  All  right,  I'm  getting  out.  My 
hotel?  But  what  is  it  they  have  done  to  it? 
They  must  have  added  ten  stories  to  it.  It 
reaches  to  the  sky.  But  I'll  not  try  to  look  to 
the  top  of  it.  Not  with  this  satchel  in  my  hand : 
no,  sir!  I'll  wait  till  I'm  safe  inside.  In  there 
I'll  feel  all  right.  They'll  know  me  in  there. 
They'll  remember  right  away  my  visit  in  the 
fall  of  '86.  They  won't  easily  have  forgotten 
that  big  dinner  I  gave — nine  people  at  a  dollar 
fifty  a  plate,  with  the  cigars  extra.  The  clerk 
will  remember  me,  all  right.  .  .  . 

Know  me  ?  Not  they.  The  clerk  know  me ! 
How  could  he?  For  it  seems  now  there  isn't 
any  clerk,  or  not  as  there  used  to  be.  They 
have  subdivided  him  somehow  into  five  or  six. 
There  Is  a  man  behind  a  desk,  a  majestic  sort 
of  man,  waving  his  hand.  It  would  be  sheer 
madness  to  claim  acquaintance  with  him.  There 
191 


Frenzied  Fiction 


is  another  with  a  great  book,  adjusting  cards  in 
it;  and  another,  behind  glass  labelled  "Cash- 
ier," and  busy  as  a  bank;  there  are  two  with 
mail  and  telegrams.  They  are  all  too  busy  to 
know  me. 

Shall  I  sneak  up  near  to  them,  keeping  my 
satchel  in  my  hand?  I  wonder,  do  they  see  me? 
Can  they  see  me,  a  mere  thing  like  me?  I  am 
within  ten  feet  of  them,  but  I  am  certain  that 
they  cannot  see  me.  I  am,  and  I  feel  it,  abso- 
lutely invisible. 

Ha !  One  has  seen  me.  He  turns  to  me, 
or  rather  he  rounds  upon  me,  with  the  words 
"Well,  sir?"  That,  and  nothing  else,  sharp 
and  hard.  There  is  none  of  the  ancient  kindly 
pretence  of  knowing  my  name,  no  reaching  out 
a  welcome  hand  and  calling  me  Mr.  Er — Er — 
till  he  has  read  my  name  upside  down  while  I 
am  writing  it,  and  can  address  me  as  a  familiar 
friend.  No  friendly  questioning  about  the 
crops  in  my  part  of  the  country.  The  crops, 
forsooth !  What  do  these  young  men  know 
about  crops? 

A  room?  Had  I  any  reservation?  Any 
192 


Lost  in  New  York — A  Visitor's  Soliloquy 

which?  Any  reservation.  Oh,  I  see,  had  I 
written  down  from  home  to  say  that  I  was  com- 
ing? No,  I  had  not  because  the  truth  is  I  came 
at  very  short  notice.     I  didn't  know  till  a  week 

before  that  my  brother-in-law He  Is  not 

listening.  He  has  moved  away.  I  will  stand 
and  wait  till  he  comes  back.  I  am  intruding 
here ;  I  had  no  right  to  disturb  these  people  hke^ 
this. 

Oh,  I  can  have  a  room  at  eleven  o'clock. 
When  it  is  which? — is  vacated.  Oh,  yes,  I  see, 
when  the  man  in  it  gets  up  and  goes  away.  I 
didn't  for  the  minute  catch  on  to  what  the  word 
He  has  stopped  listening. 

Never  mind,  I  can  wait.  From  eight  to 
eleven  is  only  three  hours,  anyway.  I  will  move 
about  here  and  look  at  things.  If  I  keep  mov- 
ing they  will  notice  me  less.  Ha !  books  and 
newspapers  and  magazines — what  a  stack  of 
them !  Like  a  regular  bookstore.  I  will  stand 
here  and  take  a  look  at  some  of  them.  Eh! 
what's  that?  Did  I  want  to  buy  anything? 
Well,  no,  I  hadn't  exactly — I  was  just — Oh,  I 
see,  they're  on  sale.  All  right,  yes,  give  me  this 
193 


Frenzied  Fiction 


one — fifty  cents — all  right — and  this  and  these 
others.  That's  all  right,  miss,  I'm  not  stingy. 
They  always  say  of  me  up  in  our  town  that  when 
I She  has  stopped  listening. 

Never  mind.  I  will  walk  up  and  down  again 
with  the  magazines  under  my  arm.  That  will 
make  people  think  I  live  here.  Better  still  if 
I  could  put  the  magazines  in  my  satchel.  But 
how  ?  There  is  no  way  to  set  it  down  and  undo 
the  straps.  I  wonder  if  I  could  dare  put  it 
for  a  minute  on  that  table,  the  polished  one — ? 
Or  no,  they  wouldn't  likely  allow  a  man  to  put  a 
bag  there. 

Well,  I  can  wait.  Anyway,  It's  eight  o'clock 
and  soon,  surely,  breakfast  will  be  ready.  As 
soon  as  I  hear  the  gong  I  can  go  in  there.  I 
wonder  if  I  could  find  out  first  where  the  dining- 
room  is.  It  used  always  to  be  marked  across 
the  door,  but  I  don't  seem  to  see  it.  Darn  it, 
I'll  ask  that  man  in  uniform.  If  I'm  here  pre- 
pared to  spend  my  good  money  to  get  breakfast 
I  guess  I'm  not  scared  to  ask  a  simple  question 
of  a  man  in  uniform.  Or  no,  I'll  not  ask  him. 
I'll  try  this  one — or  no,  he's  busy.  I'll  ask  this 
194 


Lost  in  New  York — A  Visitor's  Soliloquy 

other  boy.  Say,  would  you  mind,  if  you  please, 
telling  me,  please,  which  way  the  dining-room 
— Eh,  what?  Do  I  want  which?  The  grill 
room  or  the  palm  room?  Why,  I  tell  you, 
young  man,  I  just  wanted  to  get  some  breakfast 
if  it's — what?  Do  I  want  what?  I  didn't 
quite  get  that — a  la  carte?  No,  thanks — and, 
what's  that?  table  de  what?  in  the  palm  room? 
No,  I  just  wanted — but  it  doesn't  matter.  I'll 
wait  'round  here  and  look  about  till  I  hear  the 
gong.     Don't  worry  about  me. 

What's  that?  What's  that  boy  shouting  out 
— that  boy  with  the  tray?  A  call  for  Mr. 
Something  or  Other — say,  must  be  something 
happened  pretty  serious!  A  call  for  Mr. — 
why,  that's  for  me!  Hullo!  Here  I  am! 
Here,  ifs  Me!  Here  I  am — wanted  at  the 
desk?  all  right,  I'm  coming,  I'm  hurrying.  I 
guess  something's  wrong  at  home,  eh !  Here  I 
am.     That's  my  name.     I'm  ready. 

Oh,  a  room.  You've  got  a  room  for  me. 
All  right.  The  fifteenth  floor!  Good  Heav- 
ens!    Away  up  there!     Never  mind,  I'll  take 


Frenzied  Fiction 


it.  Can't  give  me  a  bath?  That's  all  right. 
I  had  one. 

Elevator  over  this  way?  All  right,  I'll  come 
along.  Thanks,  I  can  carry  it.  But  I  don't 
see  any  elevator?  Oh,  this  door  in  the  wall? 
Well!  I'm  hanged.  This  the  elevator!  It 
certainly  has  changed.  The  elevator  that  I  re- 
member had  a  rope  in  the  middle  of  it,  and  you 
pulled  the  rope  up  as  you  went,  wheezing  and 
clanking  all  the  way  to  the  fifth  floor.  But  this 
looks  a  queer  sort  of  machine.  How  do  you 
do — Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon.  I  was  in  the  road 
of  the  door,  I  guess.  Excuse  me,  I'm  afraid 
I  got  in  the  way  of  your  elbow.  It's  all  right, 
you  didn't  hurt — or,  not  bad. 

Gee  whiz!  It  goes  fast.  Are  you  sure  you 
can  stop  it?  Better  be  careful,  young  man. 
There  was  an  elevator  once  in  our  town  that — 
fifteenth  floor?     All  right. 

This  room,  eh!     Great  Scott,  it's  high  up. 

Say,  better  not  go  too  near  that  window,  boy. 

That  would  be  a  hell  of  a  drop  if  a  feller  fell 

out.     You  needn't  wait.     Oh,   I   see.     I  beg 

196 


Lost  in  New  York — A  Visitor's  Soliloquy 

your  pardon.  I  suppose  a  quarter  Is  enough, 
eh? 

Well,  it's  a  relief  to  be  alone.  But  say,  this 
Is  high  up !  And  what  a  noise !  What  is  it 
they're  doing  out  there,  away  out  In  the  air, 
with  all  that  clatter — building  a  steel  building, 
I  guess.  Well,  those  fellers  have  their  nerve, 
all  right.  I'll  sit  further  back  from  the  win- 
dow. 

It's  lonely  up  here.  In  the  old  days  I  could 
have  rung  a  bell  and  had  a  drink  sent  up  to 
the  room;  but  away  up  here  on  the  fifteenth 
floor!  Oh,  no,  they'd  never  send  a  drink  clean 
up  to  the  fifteenth  floor.  Of  course,  in  the  old 
days,  I  could  have  put  on  my  canvas  slippers 
and  walked  down  to  the  bar  and  had  a  drink 
and  talked  to  the  bartender. 

But  of  course  they  wouldn't  have  a  bar  In  a 
place  like  this.  I'd  like  to  go  down  and  see, 
but  I  don't  know  that  I'd  care  to  ask,  anyway. 
No,  I  guess  I'll  just  sit  and  wait.  Some  one  will 
come  for  me,  I  guess,  after  a  while. 

If  I  were  back  right  now  in  our  town,  I  could 
walk  into  Ed.  Clancey's  restaurant  and  have 
197 


Frenzied  Fiction 


ham  and  eggs,  or  steak  and  eggs,  or  anything, 
for  thirty-five  cents. 

Our  town  up  home  is  a  peach  of  a  little  town, 
anyway. 

Say,  I  just  feel  as  if  I'd  like  to  take  my  satchel 
and  jump  clean  out  of  that  window.  It  would 
be  a  good  rebuke  to  them. 

But,  pshaw !  what  would  they  care? 


198 


r-  ^   .  t     'iJ_ir  ■■-■■-■     ^ ' 


^11.— 'This  Strenuous  Age 

SOMETHING  Is  happening,  I  regret  to 
find,  to  the  world  in  which  we  used  to 
live.  The  poor  old  thing  is  being 
"speeded  up."  There  Is  "efficiency"  In 
the  air.  Offices  open  at  eight  oVlock.  Mil- 
lionaires lunch  on  a  baked  apple.  Bankers  eat 
practically  nothing.  A  college  president  has 
declared  that  there  are  more  foot  pounds  of 
energy  In  a  glass  of  peptonlsed  milk  than  In — 
something  else,  I  forget  what.  All  this  is  very 
fine.     Yet  somehow  I  feel  out  of  it. 

My  friends  are  failing  me.  They  won't  sit 
up  after  midnight.  They  have  taken  to  sleep- 
ing out  of  doors,  on  porches  and  pergolas. 
Some,  I  understand,  merely  roost  on  plain 
wooden  bars.  They  rise  early.  They  take 
deep  breathing.  They  bathe  in  ice  water. 
They  are  no  good. 

This  change,  I  am  sure,  Is  excellent.     It  is, 
199 


Frenzied  Fiction 


I  am  certain,  just  as  It  ought  to  be.  I  am 
merely  saying,  quietly  and  humbly,  that  I  am 
not  In  It.  I  am  being  left  behind.  Take,  for 
example,  the  case  of  alcohol.  That,  at  least, 
is  what  it  is  called  now.  There  were  days  when 
we  called  it  Bourbon  whiskey  and  Tom  Gin, 
and  when  the  very  name  of  it  breathed  romance. 
That  time  is  past. 

^  The  poor  stuff  is  now  called  alcohol,  and 
none  so  low  that  he  has  a  good  word  for  it. 
Quite  right,  I  am  certain.  I  don't  defend  it. 
Alcohol,  they  are  saying  to-day,  if  taken  in  suf- 
ficient quantities,  tears  all  the  outer  coating  off 
the  diaphragm.  It  leaves  the  epigastric  tissue, 
so  I  am  informed,  a  useless  wreck. 

This  I  don't  deny.  It  gets,  they  tell  me,  into 
the  brain.  I  don't  dispute  it.  It  turns  the 
prosencephalon  into  mere  punk.  I  know  it. 
I've  felt  It  doing  it.  They  tell  me — and  I  be- 
lieve It — ^that  after  even  one  glass  of  alcohol, 
or  shall  we  say  Scotch  whiskey  and  soda,  a 
man's  working  power  is  lowered  by  twenty  per 
cent.  This  Is  a  dreadful  thing.  After  three 
glasses,  so  It  is  held,  his  capacity  for  sustained 
200 


This  Strenuous  Age 


rigid  thought  is  cut  in  two.     And  after  about 

six  glasses  the  man's  working  power  is  reduced 

by  at  least  a  hundred  per  cent.     He  merely  sits 

there — in  his  arm  chair,  at  his  club  let  us  say,      *^^S^ 

with  all  power,  even  all  desire  to  work  gone 

out  of  him,  not  thinking  rigidly,  not  sustaining 

his  thought,  a  mere  shapeless  chunk  of  geniality, 

half  hidden  in  the  blue  smoke  of  his  cigar.  _... . 

Very  dreadful,  not  a  doubt.  Alcohol  is 
doomed;  it  is  going;  it  is  gone.  Yet  when  I 
think  of  a  hot  Scotch  on  a  winter  evening,  or  a 
Tom  Collins  on  a  summer  morning,  or  a  gin 
Rickey  beside  a  tennis  court,  or  a  stein  of  beer 
on  a  bench  beside  a  bowling  green — I  wish 
somehow  that  we  could  prohibit  the  use  of  al- 
cohol and  merely  drink  beer  and  whiskey  and 
gin  as  we  used  to.  But  these  things,  it  appears, 
interfere  with  work.     They  have  got  to  go. 

But  turn  to  the  broader  and  simpler  question 
of  WORK  itself.  In  my  time  one  hated  it.  It 
was  viewed  as  the  natural  enemy  of  man.  Now 
the  Yv^orld  has  fallen  In  love  with  it.  My  friends, 
I  find,  take  their  deep  breathing  and  their  porch 

201 


Frenzied  Fiction 


sleeping  because  it  makes  them  work  better. 
They  go  for  a  week's  vacation  in  Virginia  not 
for  its  own  sake,  but  because  they  say  they  can 
work  better  when  they  get  back.  I  know  a  man 
who  wears  very  loose  boots  because  he  can  work 
better  in  them:  and  another  who  wears  only 
soft  shirts  because  he  can  work  better  in  a  soft 
shirt.  There  are  plenty  of  men  now  who  would 
wear  dog-harness  if  they  thought  they  could 
work  more  in  it.  I  know  another  man  who 
walks  away  out  into  the  country  every  Sunday: 
not  that  he  likes  the  country:  he  wouldn't  rec- 
ognise a  bumble  bee  if  he  saw  it:  but  he  claims 
that  if  he  walks  on  Sunday  his  head  is  as  clear 
as  a  bell  for  work  on  Monday. 

Against  work  itself,  I  say  nothing.  But  I 
sometimes  wonder  if  I  stand  alone  in  this  thing. 
Am  I  the  only  person  left  who  hates  It? 

Nor  is  work  all.  Take  food.  I  admit,  here 
and  now,  that  the  lunch  I  like  best — ^I  mean  for 
an  ordinary  plain  lunch,  not  a  party — is  a  beef- 
steak about  one  foot  square  and  two  inches 
thick.      Can  I  work  on  it?     No,  I  can't,  but  I 

202 


This  Strenuous  Age 


can  work  in  spite  of  it.  That  is  as  much  as  one 
used  to  ask,  twenty-five  years  ago. 

Yet  now  I  find  that  all  my  friends  boast  os- 
tentatiously about  the  meagre  lunch  they  eat. 
One  tells  me  that  he  finds  a  glass  of  milk  and  a 
prune  is  quite  as  much  as  he  cares  to  take.  An- 
other says  that  a  dry  biscuit  and  a  glass  of  wa- 
ter is  all  that  his  brain  will  stand.  One  lunches 
on  the  white  of  an  tgg.  Another  eats  merely 
the  yolk.  I  have  only  two  friends  left  who 
can  eat  a  whole  tgg  at  a  time. 

I  understand  that  the  fear  of  these  men  is 
that  if  they  eat  more  than  an  egg  or  a  biscuit, 
they  y/ill  feel  heavy  after  lunch.  Why  they 
object  to  feeling  heavy,  I  do  not  know.  Per- 
sonally, I  enjoy  it.  I  like  nothing  better  than 
to  sit  round  after  a  heavy  lunch  with  half  a 
dozen  heavy  friends,  smoking  heavy  cigars. 
I  am  well  aware  that  that  Is  wicked.  I  merely 
confess  the  fact.     I  do  not  palliate  It. 

Nor  is  food  all,  nor  drink,  nor  work,  nor 
open  air.     There  has  spread  abroad  along  with 
the  so-called  physical  efficiency  a  perfect  pas- 
203 


Frenzied  Fiction 


sion  for  information.  Somehow  if  a  man's 
stomach  Is  empty  and  his  head  clear  as  a  bell, 
and  if  he  won't  drink  and  won't  smoke,  he 
reaches  out  for  information.  He  wants  facts. 
He  reads  the  newspapers  all  through,  instead  of 
only  reading  the  headings.  He  clamours  for 
articles  filled  with  statistics  about  Illiteracy  and 
alien  Immigration  and  the  number  of  battle- 
ships in  the  Japanese  navy. 

I  know  quite  a  lot  of  men  who  have  actually 
bought  the  new  Encyclopsedla  Britannica.  What 
Is  more,  they  read  the  thing.  They  sit  in  their 
apartments  at  night  with  a  glass  of  water  at 
their  elbow  reading  the  encyclopaedia.  They 
say  that  it  is  literally  filled  with  facts.  Other 
men  spend  their  time  reading  the  Statistical  Ab- 
stract of  the  United  States  (they  say  the  figures 
in  It  are  great)  and  the  Acts  of  Congress,  and 
the  list  of  Presidents  since  Washington  (or  was 
it  Washington?). 

Spending  their  evenings  thus,  and  topping  it 
off  with  a  cold  baked  apple,  and  sleeping  out  In 
the  snow,  they  go  to  work  in  the  morning,  so 
204 


This  Strenuous  Age 


they  tell  me,  with  a  positive  sense  of  exhilara- 
tion. I  have  no  doubt  that  they  do.  But  for 
me,  I  confess  that  once  and  for  all  I  am  out  of 
it.      I  am  left  behind. 

Add  to  it  all  such  rising  dangers  as  total  pro- 
hibition, and  the  female  franchise,  the  daylight 
saving,  and  eugenic  marriage,  together  with  pro- 
portional representation,  the  initiative  and  the 
referendum,  and  the  duty  of  the  citizen  to  take 
an  intelligent  interest  in  politics — and  I  admit 
that  I  shall  not  be  sorry  to  go  away  from  here. 

But  before  I  do  go,  I  have  one  hope.  I  un- 
derstand that  down  in  Hayti  things  are  very  dif- 
ferent. Bull  fights,  cock  fights,  dog  fights,  are 
openly  permitted.  Business  never  begins  till 
eleven  in  the  morning.  Everybody  sleeps  after  "% 
lunch,    and   the   bars    remain    open    all   night.  C 

Marriage  is  but  a  casual  relation.  In  tact,  the 
general  condition  of  morality,  so  they  tell  me, 
is  lower  in  Hayti  than  it  has  been  anywhere 
since  the  time  of  Nero.    Me  for  HaytL 


205 


XI I  I. -The  Old,  Old  Story  of  How 
Five  Men  Went  Fishing' 

THIS  Is  a  plain  account  of  a  fishing 
party.  It  is  not  a  story.  There  is 
no  plot.  Nothing  happens  in  it  and 
nobody  Is  hurt.  The  only  point  of 
this  narrative  is  its  peculiar  truth.  It  not  only 
tells  what  happened  to  us — the  five  people  con- 
cerned in  it — but  what  has  happened  and  is  hap- 
pening to  all  the  other  fishing  parties  that  at  the 
season  of  the  year,  from  Halifax  to  Idaho,  go 
gliding  out  on  the  unrufHed  surface  of  our  Cana- 
dian and  American  lakes  In  the  still  cool  of 
early  summer  morning. 

We  decided  to  go  In  the  early  morning  be- 
cause there  Is  a  popular  belief  that  the  early 
morning  Is  the  right  time  for  bass  fishing.  The 
bass  Is  said  to  bite  In  the  early  morning.  Per- 
haps It  does.  In  fact  the  thing  Is  almost  capa- 
ble of  scientific  proof.  The  bass  does  not  bite 
206 


Hoxv  Five  Men  Went  Fishing 

between  eight  and  twelve.  It  does  7iot  bite 
between  twelve  and  six  in  the  afternoon.  Nor 
does  it  bite  between  six  o'clock  and  midnight. 
All  these  things  are  known  facts.  The  infer- 
ence is  that  the  bass  bites  furiously  at  about 
daybreak. 

At  any  rate  our  party  were  unanimous  about 
starting  early.  ''Better  make  an  early  start,'* 
said  the  Colonel  when  the  idea  of  the  party  was 
suggested.  **0h,  yes,"  said  George  Popley, 
the  Bank  Manager,  "we  want  to  get  right  out 
on  the  shoal  while  the  fish  are  biting." 

When  he  said  this  all  our  eyes  glistened. 
Everybody's  do.  There's  a  thrill  in  the  words. 
To  ''get  right  out  on  the  shoal  at  daybreak  when 
the  fish  are  biting,"  is  an  idea  that  goes  to  any 
man's  brain. 

If  you  listen  to  the  men  talking  in  a  Pullman 
car,  or  a  hotel  corridor,  or  better  still,  at  the 
little  tables  in  a  first-class  bar,  you  will  not  listen 
long  before  you  hear  one  say — "Well,  we  got 
out  early,  just  after  sunrise,  right  on  the  shoal." 
.  .  .  And  presently,  even  if  you  can't  hear  him 
you  will  see  him  reach  out  his  two  hands  and 
207 


Frenzied  Fiction 


hold  them  about  two  feet  apart  for  the  other 
man  to  admire.  He  is  measuring  the  fish.  No, 
not  the  fish  they  caught;  this  was  the  big  one 
that  they  lost.  But  they  had  him  right  up  to 
the  top  of  the  water:  Oh,  yes,  he  was  up  to  the 
top  of  the  water  all  right.  The  number  of  huge 
fish  that  have  been  heaved  up  to  the  top  of  the 
water  in  our  lakes  is  almost  incredible.  Or  at 
least  it  used  to  be  when  we  still  had  bar  rooms 
and  little  tables  for  serving  that  vile  stuff  Scotch 
whiskey  and  such  foul  things  as  gin  Rickeys  and 
John  Collinses.  It  makes  one  sick  to  think  of 
it,  doesn't  it?  But  there  was  good  fishing  in 
the  bars,  all  winter. 

But,  as  I  say,  we  decided  to  go  early  in  the 
morning.  Charlie  Jones,  the  railroad  man, 
said  that  he  remembered  how  when  he  w^as  a 
boy,  up  in  Wisconsin,  they  used  to  get  out  at  five 
in  the  morning — not  get  up  at  five  but  be  on 
the  shoal  at  five.  It  appears  that  there  is  a 
shoal  somewhere  In  Wisconsin  where  the  bass 
lie  in  thousands.  Kernin,  the  lawyer,  said  that 
when  he  was  a  boy — this  was  on  Lake  Rosseau 
208 


How  Five  Men  Went  Fishing 

— they  used  to  get  out  at  four.  It  seems  there 
Is  a  shoal  In  Lake  Rosseau  where  you  can  haul 
up  the  bass  as  fast  as  you  can  drop  your  line. 
The  shoal  Is  hard  to  find — ^very  hard.  Kernin 
can  find  It,  but  It  Is  doubtful — so  I  gather — If 
any  other  living  man  can.  The  Wisconsin 
shoal,  too,  Is  very  difficult  to  find.  Once  you 
find  It,  you  are  all  right;  but  It's  hard  to  find. 
Charlie  Jones  can  find  It.  If  you  were  In  Wis- 
consin right  now  he'd  take  you  straight  to  It, 
but  probably  no  other  person  now  alive  could 
reach  that  shoal.  In  the  same  way  Colonel 
Morse  knows  of  a  shoal  In  Lake  SImcoe  where 
he  used  to  fish  years  and  years  ago  and  which,  I 
understand,  he  can  still  find. 

I  have  mentioned  that  Kernin  is  a  lawyer,  and 
Jones  a  railroad  man  and  Popley  a  banker. 
But  I  needn't  have.  Any  reader  would  take  it 
for  granted.  In  any  fishing  party  there  Is  al- 
ways a  lawyer.  You  can  tell  him  at  sight.  He 
Is  the  one  of  the  party  that  has  a  landing  net  and 
a  steel  rod  In  sections  with  a  v/heel  that  is  used 
to  wind  the  fish  to  the  top  of  the  water. 

And  there  is  always  a  banker.  You  can  tell 
209 


Frenzied  Fiction 


him  by  his  good  clothes.  Popley,  in  the  bank, 
wears  his  banking  suit.  When  he  goes  fishing 
he  wears  his  fishing  suit.  It  Is  much  the  better 
of  the  two,  because  his  banking  suit  has  Ink 
marks  on  It,  and  his  fishing  suit  has  no  fish 
marks  on  It. 

As  for  the  Railroad  Man, — quite  so,  the 
reader  knows  It  as  well  as  I  do, — ^you  can  tell 
him  because  he  carries  a  pole  that  he  cut  In  the 
bush  himself,  with  a  ten  cent  line  wrapped 
round  the  end  of  It.  Jones  says  he  can  catch 
as  many  fish  with  this  kind  of  line  as  Kernin  can 
with  his  patent  rod  and  wheel.  So  he  can,  too. 
Just  the  same  number. 

But  Kernin  says  that  with  his  patent  appara- 
tus if  you  get  a  fish  on  you  can  play  him.  Jones 
says  to  Hades  with  playing  him :  give  him  a  fish 
f  on  his  line  and  he'll  haul  him  In  all  right.  Ker- 
nin says  he'd  lose  him.  But  Jones  says  he 
wouldn't.  In  fact  he  guarantees  to  haul  the 
fish  In.  Kernin  says  that  more  than  once  (in 
I^ake  Rosseau)  he  has  played  a  fish  for  over 
half  an  hour.  I  forget  now  why  he  stopped; 
I  think  the  fish  quit  playing. 

210 


How  Five  Men  Went  Fishing 

I  have  heard  Kernin  and  Jones  argue  this 
question  of  their  two  rods,  as  to  which  rod  can 
best  pull  in  the  fish,  for  half  an  hour.  Others 
may  have  heard  the  same  question  debated.  I 
know  no  way  by  which  it  could  be  settled. 

Our  arrangement  to  go  fishing  was  made  at 
the  little  golf  club  of  our  summer  town  on  the 
verandah  where  we  sit  in  the  evening.  Oh,  it's 
just  a  little  place,  nothing  pretentious :  the  links 
are  not  much  good  for  golf;  in  fact  we  don't 
play  much  golf  there,  so  far  as  golf  goes,  and 
of  course,  we  don't  serve  meals  at  the  club,  it's 
not  like  that, — and  no,  we've  nothing  to  drink 
there  because  of  prohibition.  But  we  go  and 
sit  there.  It  is  a  good  place  to  sit,  and,  after 
all,  what  else  can  you  do  in  the  present  state  of 
the  law? 

So  it  was  there  that  we  arranged  the  party. 

The  thing  somehow  seemed  to  fall  into  the 
mood  of  each  of  us.  Jones  said  he  had  been 
hoping  that  some  of  the  boys  would  get  up  a 
fishing  party.  It  was  apparently  the  one  kind 
of  pleasure  that  he  really  cared  for.  For  my- 
self I  was  delighted  to  get  in  with  a  crowd  of 

211 


Frenzied  Fiction 


regular  fishermen  like  these  four,  especially  as 
I  hadn't  been  out  fishing  for  nearly  ten  years: 
though  fishing  is  a  thing  I  am  passionately  fond 
of.  I  know  no  pleasure  in  life  like  the  sensa- 
tion of  getting  a  four  pound  bass  on  the  hook 
and  hauling  him  up  to  the  top  of  the  water,  to 
weigh  him.  But,  as  I  say,  I  hadn't  been  out  for 
ten  years:  Oh,  yes,  I  live  right  beside  the  water 
every  summer,  and  yes,  certainly, — I  am  say- 
ing so, — I  am  passionately  fond  of  fishing,  but 
still  somehow  I  hadn't  been  out.  Every  fisher- 
man knows  just  how  that  happens.  The  years 
have  a  way  of  slipping  by.  Yet  I  must  say  I 
was  surprised  to  find  that  so  keen  a  sport  as 
Jones  hadn't  been  out, — so  it  presently  ap- 
peared,— for  eight  years.  I  had  imagined  he 
practically  lived  on  the  water.  And  Colonel 
Morse  and  Kernin, — I  was  amazed  to  find, — 
hadn't  been  out  for  twelve  years,  not  since  the 
day  (so  it  came  out  in  conversation)  when  they 
went  out  together  in  Lake  Rosseau  and  Kernin 
landed  a  perfect  monster,  a  regular  corker,  five 
pounds  and  a  half,  they  said:  or  no,  I  don't 
think   he   landed  him.     No,   I   remember,   he 

212 


How  Five  Men  Went  Fishing 

didn't  land  him.  He  caught  him, — and  he 
could  have  landed  him, — he  should  have  landed 
him, — but  he  didn't  land  him.  That  was  it. 
Yes,  I  remember  Kernin  and  Morse  had  a  slight 
discussion  about  it, — oh,  perfectly  amicable, — 
as  to  whether  Morse  had  fumbled  with  the  net 
— or  whether  Kernin — the  whole  argument  was 
perfectly  friendly — had  made  an  ass  of  him- 
self by  not  "striking"  soon  enough.  Of  course 
the  whole  thing  was  so  long  ago,  that  both  of 
them  could  look  back  on  it  without  any  bitter- 
ness or  ill  nature.  In  fact  it  amused  them.  Ker- 
nin said  it  was  the  most  laughable  thing  he  ever 
saw  in  his  life  to  see  poor  old  Jack  (that's 
Morse's  name)  shoving  away  with  the  landing 
net  wrong  side  up.  And  Morse  said  he'd  never 
forget  seeing  poor  old  Kernin  yanking  his  line 
first  this  way  and  then  that  and  not  knowing 
where  to  try  to  haul  it.  It  made  him  laugh  to 
look  back  at  it. 

They  might  have  gone  on  laughing  for  quite 
a  time  but  Charlie  Jones  interrupted  by  saying 
that  in  his  opinion  a  landing  net  is  a  piece  of 
213 


Frenzied  Fiction 


darned  foolishness.  Here  Popley  agrees  with 
him.  Kernin  objects  that  if  you  don't  use  a 
net  you'll  lose  your  fish  at  the  side  of  the  boat. 
Jones  says  no:  give  him  a  hook  well  through 
the  fish  and  a  stout  line  in  his  hand  and  that  fish 
has  ^ot  to  come  in.  Popley  says  so  too.  He 
says  let  him  have  his  hook  fast  through  the  fish's 
head  with  a  short  stout  line,  and  put  him  (Pop- 
ley)  at  the  other  end  of  that  line  and  that  fish 
will  come  in.  It's  got  to.  Otherwise  Popley 
will  know  why.  That's  the  alternative.  Either 
the  fish  must  come  in  or  Popley  must  know  why. 
There's  no  escape  from  the  logic  of  it. 

But  perhaps  some  of  my  readers  have  heard 
the  thing  discussed  before. 

So  as  I  say  we  decided  to  go  the  next  morn- 
ing and  to  make  an  early  start.  All  of  the  boys 
were  at  one  about  that.  When  I  say  "boys,"  I 
use  the  word,  as  it  is  used  in  fishing,  to  mean 
people  from  say  forty-five  to  sixty-five.  There  Is 
something  about  fishing  that  keeps  men  young. 
If  a  fellow  gets  out  for  a  good  morning's  fish- 
ing, forgetting  all  business  worries,  once  in  a 
214 


How  Five  Men  Went  Fishing 

while — say  once  In  ten  years — It  keeps  him 
fresh. 

We  agree  to  go  In  a  launch,  a  large  launch, — 
to  be  exact,  the  largest  In  the  town.  We  could 
have  gone  In  row  boats,  but  a  row  boat  is  a 
poor  thing  to  fish  from.  Kernin  said  that  in 
a  row  boat  it  is  Impossible  properly  to  ^^play'^ 
your  fish.  The  side  of  the  boat  Is  so  low  that 
the  fish  is  apt  to  leap  over  the  side  into  the  boat 
when  half  "played."  Popley  said  that  there  is 
no  comfort  In  a  row  boat.  In  a  launch  a  man 
can  reach  out  his  feet,  and  take  it  easy.  Charlie 
Jones  said  that  In  a  launch  a  man  could  rest 
his  back  against  something  and  Morse  said 
that  In  a  launch  a  man  could  rest  his  neck. 
Young  Inexperienced  boys,  In  the  small  sense  of 
the  word,  never  think  of  these  things.  So  they 
go  out  and  after  a  few  hours  their  necks  get 
tired;  whereas  a  group  of  expert  fishers  in  a 
launch  can  rest  their  backs  and  necks  and  even 
fall  asleep  during  the  pauses  when  the  fish  stop 
biting. 

Anyway  all  the  "boys"  agreed  that  the  great 
advantage  of  a  launch  would  be  that  we  could 
215 


Frenzied  Fiction 


get  a  man  to  take  us.  By  that  means  the  man 
could  see  to  getting  the  worms,  and  the  man 
would  be  sure  to  have  spare  lines,  and  the  man 
could  come  along  to  our  different  places, — we 
were  all  beside  the  water, — and  pick  us  up.  In 
fact  the  more  we  thought  about  the  advantage 
of  having  a  "man"  to  take  us  the  better  we 
liked  it.  As  a  boy  gets  old  he  likes  to  have  a 
man  around  to  do  the  work. 

Anyway  Frank  Rolls,  the  man  we  decided  to 
get,  not  only  has  the  biggest  launch  in  town,  but 
what  is  more,  Frank  knows  the  lake.  We 
called  him  up  up  at  his  boat  house  over  the 
phone  and  said  we'd  give  him  five  dollars  to 
take  us  out  first  thing  In  the  morning  provided 
that  he  knew  the  shoal.    He  said  he  knew  it. 

I  don't  know,  to  be  quite  candid  about  it, 
who  mentioned  whiskey  first.  In  these  days 
everybody  has  to  be  a  little  careful.  I  Imagine 
we  had  all  been  thinking  whiskey  for  some  time 
before  anybody  said  It.  But  there  is  a  sort  of 
convention  that  when  men  go  fishing  they  must 
have  whiskey.  Each  man  makes  the  pretence 
216 


How  Five  Men  Went  Fishing 

that  the  one  thing  he  needs  at  six  o'clock  In  the 
morning  is  cold  raw  whiskey.  It  Is  spoken  of 
In  terms  of  affection.  One  man  says  the  first 
thing  you  need  If  youVe  going  fishing  Is  a  good 
"snort"  of  whiskey:  another  says  that  a  good 
"snifter"  Is  the  very  thing  and  the  others  agree, 
that  no  man  can  fish  properly  without  "a  horn," 
or  a  "bracer"  or  an  "eye-opener."  Each  man 
really  decides  that  he  himself  won't  take  any. 
But  he  feels  that  In  a  collective  sense,  the  "boys" 
need  It. 

So  It  was  with  us.  The  Colonel  said  he'd 
bring  along  "a  bottle  of  booze."  Popley  said, 
no,  let  him  bring  It;  Kernin  said  let  him:  and 
Charlie  Jones  said  no,  he'd  bring  It.  It  turned 
out  that  the  Colonel  had  some  very  good  Scotch 
at  his  house  that  he'd  like  to  bring:  oddly 
enough  Popley  had  some  good  Scotch  In  his 
house  too;  and,  queer  though  It  Is,  each  of  the 
boys  had  Scotch  In  his  house.  When  the  dis- 
cussion closed  we  knew  that  each  of  the  five  of 
us  was  Intending  to  bring  a  bottle  of  whiskey. 
Each  of  the  five  of  us  expected  the  others  to 
217 


Frenzied  Fiction 


drink  one  and  a  quarter  bottles  in  the  course  of 
the  morning. 

I  suppose  we  must  have  talked  on  that  ve- 
randah till  long  after  one  in  the  morning.  It 
was  probably  nearer  two  than  one  when  we 
broke  up.  But  we  agreed  that  that  made  no 
difference.  Popley  said  that  for  him  three 
hours'  sleep,  the  right  kind  of  sleep,  was  far 
more  refreshing  than  ten.  Kernin  said  that  a 
lawyer  learns  to  snatch  his  sleep  when  he  can, 
and  Jones  said  that  in  railroad  work  a  man 
pretty  well  cuts  out  sleep. 

So  we  had  no  alarms  whatever  about  not  be- 
ing ready  by  five.  Our  plan  was  simplicity  it- 
self. Men  like  ourselves  in  responsible  posi- 
tions learn  to  organise  things  easily.  In  fact 
Popley  says  it  is  that  faculty  that  has  put  us 
where  we  are.  So  the  plan  simply  was  that 
Frank  Rolls  should  come  along  at  five  o'clock 
and  blow  his  whistle  in  front  of  our  places,  and 
at  that  signal  each  man  would  come  down  to 
his  wharf  with  his  rod  and  kit  and  so  we'd  be 
off  to  the  shoal  without  a  moment's  delay. 

The  weather  we  ruled  out.  It  was  decided 
218 


How  Five  Men  Went  Fishing 

that  even  If  It  rained  that  made  no  difference. 
Kernin  said  that  fish  bite  better  in  the  rain.  And 
everybody  agreed  that  a  man  with  a  couple  of 
snorts  in  him  need  have  no  fear  of  a  little  rain 
water. 

So  we  parted,  all  keen  on  the  enterprise. 
Nor  do  I  think  even  now  that  there  was  any- 
thing faulty  or  imperfect  in  that  party  as  we 
planned  it. 

I  heard  Frank  Rolls  blowing  his  infernal 
whistle  opposite  my  summer  cottage  at  some 
ghastly  hour  in  the  morning.  Even  without 
getting  out  of  bed,  I  could  see  from  the  window 
that  it  was  no  day  for  fishing.  No,  not  raining 
exactly.  I  don't  mean  that,  but  one  of  those 
peculiar  days — I  don't  mean  wind — there  was 
no  wind,  but  a  sort  of  feeling  in  the  air  that 
showed  anybody  who  understands  bass  fishing 
that  it  was  a  perfectly  rotten  day  for  going  out. 
The  fish,  I  seemed  to  know  It,  wouldn't  bite. 

When  I  was  still  fretting  over  the  annoyance 
of  the  disappointment  I  heard  Frank  Rolls 
blowing  his  whistle  in  front  of  the  other  cot- 
tages. I  counted  thirty  whistles  altogether. 
219 


Frenzied  Fiction 


Then  I  fell  into  a  light  doze — not  exactly  sleep, 
but  a  sort  of  doze, — I  can  find  no  other  word 
for  It.  It  was  clear  to  me  that  the  other  *'boys" 
had  thrown  the  thing  over.  There  was  no  use 
in  my  trying  to  go  out  alone.  I  stayed  where 
I  was,  my  doze  lasting  till  ten  o'clock. 

When  I  walked  up  town  later  In  the  morning 
I  couldn't  help  being  struck  by  the  signs  in  the 
butchers'  shops  and  the  restaurants,  FISH, 
FRESH  FISH,  FRESH  LAKE  FISH. 

Where  in  blazes  do  they  get  those  fish  any- 
way? 


220 


XIV. — Back  from  the  Land 

HAVE  just  come  back — now  with  the 
closing  In  of  Autumn — to  the  city.  I 
have  hung  up  my  hoe  In  my  study;  my 
spade  Is  put  away  behind  the  piano.  I 
have  with  me  seven  pounds  of  Paris  Green  that 
I  had  over.  Anybody  who  wants  It  may  have  It. 
I  didn't  like  to  bury  It  for  fear  of  Its  poisoning 
the  ground.  I  didn't  like  to  throw  It  away 
for  fear  of  Its  destroying  cattle.  I  was  afraid 
to  leave  It  In  my  summer  place  for  fear  that  It 
might  poison  the  tramps  who  generally  break  In 
in  November.  I  have  It  with  me  now.  I  move 
it  from  room  to  room,  as  I  hate  to  turn  my 
back  upon  It.  Anybody  who  wants  It,  I  repeat, 
can  have  It. 

I  should  like  also  to  give  away  either  to  the 
Red  Cross  or  to  anything  else,  ten  packets  of 
radish  seed  (the  early  curled  variety,  I  think), 
fifteen  packets  of  cucumber  seed  (the  long  suc- 

221 


Frenzied  Fiction 


culent  variety,  I  believe  it  says),  and  twenty 
packets  of  onion  seed  (the  Yellow  Danvers, 
distinguished,  I  understand,  for  its  edible 
flavour  and  its  nutritious  properties).  It  is  not 
likely  that  I  shall  ever,  on  this  side  of  the  grave, 
plant  onion  seed  again.  All  these  things  I  have 
with  me.  My  vegetables  are  to  come  after  me 
by  freight.  They  are  booked  from  SImcoe 
County  to  Montreal :  at  present  they  are,  I  be- 
lieve, passing  through  Schenectady.  But  they 
will  arrive  later  all  right.  They  were  seen  going 
through  Detroit  last  week,  moving  west.  It  is 
the  first  time  that  I  ever  sent  anything  by  freight 
anywhere.  I  never  understood  before  the  won- 
derful organisation  of  the  railroads.  But  they 
tell  me  that  there  is  a  bad  congestion  of  freight 
down  South  this  month.  If  my  vegetables  get 
tangled  up  in  that  there  is  no  telling  when  they 
will  arrive. 

In  other  words,  I  am  one  of  the  legion  of 
men — quiet,  determined,  resolute  men — who 
went  out  last  spring  to  plant  the  land,  and  who 
are  now  back. 

222 


Back  From  the  Land 


With  me — and  I  am  sure  that  I  speak  for 
all  the  others  as  well — It  was  not  a  question 
of  mere  pleasure;  It  was  no  love  of  gardening 
for  its  own  sake  that  inspired  us.  It  was  a 
plain  national  duty.  What  we  said  to  our- 
selves was:  "This  war  has  got  to  stop.  The 
men  in  the  trenches  thus  far  have  failed  to 
stop  it.  Now  let  us  try.  The  whole  thing,'* 
we  argued,  "is  a  plain  matter  of  food  produc- 
tion." 

"If  we  raise  enough  food  the  Germans  are 
bound  to  starve.  Very  good.  Let  us  kill 
them." 

I  suppose  there  was  never  a  more  grimly  de- 
termined set  of  men  went  out  from  the  cities 
than  those  who  went  out  last  May,  as  I  did, 
to  conquer  the  food  problem.  I  don't  mean  to 
say  that  each  and  every  one  of  us  actually  left 
the  city.  But  we  all  "went  forth"  in  the  meta- 
phorical sense.  Some  of  the  men  cultivated 
back  gardens;  others  took  vacant  lots;  some 
went  out  into  the  suburbs;  and  others,  like  my- 
self, went  right  out  into  the  country. 

We  are  now  back.  Each  of  us  has  with  him 
223 


Frenzied  Fiction 


his  Paris  Green,  his  hoe  and  the  rest  of  his 
radish  seed. 

The  time  has,  therefore,  come  for  a  plain, 
clear  statement  of  our  experience.  We  have, 
as  everybody  knows,  failed.  We  have  been 
beaten  back  all  along  the  line.  Our  potatoes 
are  buried  in  a  jungle  of  autumn  burdocks.  Our 
radishes  stand  seven  feet  high,  uneatable.  Our 
tomatoes,  when  last  seen,  were  greener  than 
they  were  at  the  beginning  of  August,  and  get- 
ting greener  every  week.  Our  celery  looked 
as  delicate  as  a  maidenhair  fern.  Our  Indian 
corn  was  nine  feet  high  with  a  tall  feathery 
spike  on  top  of  that,  but  no  sign  of  anything 
eatable  about  it  from  top  to  bottom. 

I  look  back  with  a  sigh  of  regret  at  those 
bright,  early  days  in  April  when  we  were  all 
buying  hoes,  and  talking  soil  and  waiting  for 
the  snow  to  be  off  the  ground.  The  street  cars, 
as  we  went  up  and  down  to  our  offices,  were  a 
busy  babel  of  garden  talk.  There  was  a  sort  of 
farmer-like  geniality  in  the  air.  One  spoke 
224 


Bach  From  the  Land 


freely  to  strangers.  Every  man  with  a  hoe  was 
a  friend.  Men  chewed  straws  In  their  offices, 
and  kept  looking  out  of  wlndow^s  to  pretend  to 
themselves  that  they  w^ere  afraid  It  might  blow 
up  rain.  "Got  your  tomatoes  In?"  one  man 
would  ask  another  as  they  went  up  In  the  eleva- 
tor. "Yes,  I  got  mine  In  yesterday,"  the  other 
would  answer,  "but  I'm  just  a  little  afraid  that 
this  east  wind  may  blow  up  a  little  frost.  What 
we  need  now  Is  growing  weather."  And  the 
two  men  would  drift  off  together  from  the  ele- 
vator door  along  the  corridor,  their  heads  to- 
gether In  friendly  colloquy. 

I  have  always  regarded  a  lawyer  as  a  man 
without  a  soul.  There  Is  one  who  lives  next 
door  to  me  to  whom  I  have  not  spoken  In  live 
years.  Yet  when  I  saw  him  one  day  last  spring 
heading  for  the  suburbs  In  a  pair  of  old  trou- 
sers with  a  hoe  In  one  hand  and  a  box  of  celery 
plants  In  the  other  I  felt  that  I  loved  the  man. 
I  used  to  think  that  stock  brokers  were  mere 
sordid  calculating  machines.  Now  that  I  have 
seen  whole  firms  of  them  busy  at  the  hoe,  wear- 
ing old  trousers  that  reached  to  their  armpits 
225 


Frenzied  Fiction 


and  were  tied  about  the  waist  with  a  polka  dot 
necktie,  I  know  that  they  are  men.  I  know  that 
there  are  warm  hearts  beating  behind  those 
trousers. 

Old  trousers,  I  say.  Where  on  earth  did 
they  all  come  from  in  such  a  sudden  fashion  last 
spring?  Everybody  had  them.  Who  would 
suspect  that  a  man  drawing  a  salary  of  ten  thou- 
sand a  year  was  keeping  in  reserve  a  pair  of 
pepper  and  salt  breeches,  four  sizes  too  large 
for  him,  just  in  case  a  war  should  break  out 
against  Germany!  Talk  of  German  mobilisa- 
tion! I  doubt  whether  the  organizing  power 
was  all  on  their  side  after  all.  At  any  rate  it 
is  estimated  that  fifty  thousand  pairs  of  old 
trousers  were  mobilised  In  Montreal  in  one 
week. 

But  perhaps  it  was  not  a  case  of  mobilisation, 
or  deliberate  preparedness.  It  was  rather  an 
illustration  of  the  primitive  Instinct  that  is  in 
all  of  us  and  that  will  out  in  ''war  time."  Any 
man  worth  the  name  would  wear  old  breeches 
all  the  time  if  the  world  would  let  him.  Any 
man  will  wind  a  polka  dot  tie  round  his  waist 
226 


Back  From  the  Land 


In  preference  to  wearing  patent  braces.  The 
makers  of  the  ties  know  this.  That  is  why  they 
make  the  tie  four  feet  long.  And  in  the  same 
way  if  any  manufacturer  of  hats  v/ill  put  on 
the  market  an  old  fedora,  with  a  limp  rim  and  a 
mark  where  the  ribbon  used  to  be  but  is  not — 
a  hat  guaranteed  to  be  six  years  old,  well  weath- 
ered, well  rained  on,  and  certified  to  have  been 
w^alked  over  by  a  herd  of  cattle — that  man  will 
make  and  deserve  a  fortune. 

These  at  least  were  the  fashions  of  last  May. 
Alas,  where  are  they  now?  The  men  that  wore 
them  have  relapsed  again  into  tailor-made 
tweeds.  They  have  put  on  hard  new  hats. 
They  are  shining  their  boots  again.  They  are 
shaving  again,  not  merely  on  Saturday  night, 
but  every  day.  They  are  sinking  back  into  civi- 
lisation. 

Yet  those  were  bright  times  and  I  cannot 
forbear  to  linger  on  them.  Not  the  least  pleas- 
ant feature  was  our  rediscovery  of  the  morn- 
ing. My  neighbour  on  the  right  was  always 
up  at  fi\t.  My  neighbour  on  the  left  was  out 
227 


Frenzied  Fiction 


and  about  by  four.  With  the  earliest  light  of 
day  little  columns  of  smoke  rose  along  our 
street  from  the  kitchen  ranges  where  cur  wives 
were  making  coffee  for  us  before  the  servants 
got  up.  By  six  o'clock  the  street  was  alive  and 
busy  with  friendly  salutations.  The  milkman 
seemed  a  late  comer,  a  poor,  sluggish  fellow 
who  failed  to  appreciate  the  early  hours  of  the 
day.  A  man,  we  found,  might  live  through 
quite  a  little  Iliad  of  adventure  before  going 
to  his  nine  o'clock  office. 

"How  will  you  possibly  get  time  to  put  In  a 
garden?"  I  asked  of  one  of  my  neighbours  dur- 
ing this  glad  period  of  early  spring  just  before 
I  left  for  the  country.  "Time !"  he  exclaimed. 
"Why,  my  dear  fellow,  I  don't  have  to  be  down 
at  the  warehouse  till  eight-thirty." 

Later  in  the  summer  I  saw  the  wreck  of  his 
garden,  choked  with  weeds.  "Your  garden,"  I 
said,  "is  in  poor  shape."  "Garden!"  he  said 
indignantly.  "How  on  earth  can  I  find  time  for 
a  garden?  Do  you  realise  that  I  have  to  be 
down  at  the  warehouse  at  eight-thirty?" 
228 


Bach  From  the  Land 


When  I  look  back  to  our  bright  beginnings 
our  failure  seems  hard  indeed  to  understand.  It 
is  only  when  I  survey  the  whole  garden  move- 
ment in  melancholy  retrospect  that  I  am  able 
to  see  some  of  the  reasons  for  It. 

The  principal  one,  I  think,  Is  the  question  of 
the  season.  It  appears  that  the  right  time  to 
begin  gardening  is  last  year.  For  many  things  it 
is  well  to  begin  the  year  before  last.  For  good 
results  one  must  begin  even  sooner.  Here,  for 
example,  are  the  directions,  as  I  interpret  them, 
for  growing  asparagus.  Having  secured  a  suit- 
able piece  of  ground,  preferably  a  deep  friable 
loam  rich  in  nitrogen,  go  out  three  years  ago 
and  plough  or  dig  deeply.  Remain  a  year  in- 
active, thinking.  Two  years  ago  pulverise  the 
soil  thoroughly.  Wait  a  year.  As  soon  as  last 
year  comes  set  out  the  young  shoots.  Then 
spend  a  quiet  winter  doing  nothing.  The 
asparagus  will  then  be  ready  to  work  at  this 
year. 

This  IS  the  rock  on  which  we  were  wrecked. 
Few  of  us  were  men  of  sufFicient  means  tt>  spend 
229 


Frenzied  Fiction 


several  years  In  quiet  thought  waiting  to  be- 
gin gardening.  Yet  that  is,  it  seems,  the  only 
way  to  begin.  Asparagus  demands  a  prepara- 
tion of  four  years.  To  fit  oneself  to  grow 
strawberries  requires  three  years.  Even  for 
such  humble  things  as  peas,  beans,  and  lettuce 
the  instructions  inevitably  read,  "plough  the  soil 
deeply  in  the  preceding  autumn."  This  sets  up 
a  dilemma.  Which  is  the  preceding  autumn? 
If  a  man  begins  gardening  in  the  spring  he  is 
too  late  for  last  autumn  and  too  early  for  this. 
On  the  other  hand  if  he  begins  in  the  autumn 
he  is  again  too  late;  he  has  missed  this  sum- 
mer's crop.  It  Is,  therefore,  ridiculous  to  be- 
gin In  the  autumn  and  Impossible  to  begin  in 
the  spring. 

This  was  our  first  difficulty.  But  the  second 
arose  from  the  question  of  the  soil  Itself.  All 
the  books  and  instructions  Insist  that  the  selec- 
tion of  the  soil  is  the  most  important  part  of 
gardening.  No  doubt  it  is.  But  If  a  man  has 
already  selected  his  own  back  yard  before  he 
opens  the  book,  what  remedy  is  there?  All 
230 


Bach  From  the  Land 


the  books  lay  stress  on  the  need  of  *'a  deep, 
friable  loam  full  of  nitrogen."  This  I  have 
never  seen.  My  own  plot  of  land  I  found  on 
examination  to  contain  nothing  but  earth.  I 
could  see  no  trace  of  nitrogen.  I  do  not  deny 
the  existence  of  loam.  There  may  be  such  a 
thing.  But  I  am  admitting  now  in  all  humility 
of  mind  that  I  don't  know  what  loam  is.  Last 
spring  my  fellow  gardeners  and  I  all  talked 
freely  of  the  desirability  of  "a  loam."  My  own 
opinion  is  that  none  of  them  had  any  clearer 
ideas  about  it  than  I  had.  Speaking  from  ex- 
perience, I  should  say  that  the  only  soils  are 
earth,  mud  and  dirt.    There  are  no  others. 

But  I  leave  out  the  soil.  In  any  case  we  were 
mostly  forced  to  disregard  it.  Perhaps  a  more 
fruitful  source  of  failure  even  than  the  lack  of 
loam  was  the  attempt  to  apply  calculation  and 
mathematics  to  gardening.  Thus,  if  one  cab- 
bage will  grow  in  one  square  foot  of  ground, 
how  many  cabbages  will  grow  in  ten  square  feet 
of  ground?  Ten?  Not  at  all.  The  answer  is 
one.  You  will  find  as  a  matter  of  practical  ex- 
perience that  however  many  cabbages  you  plant 
231 


Frenzied  Fiction 


m  a  garden  plot  there  will  be  only  one  that  will 
really  grow.  This  you  will  presently  come  to 
speak  of  as  the  cabbage.  Beside  it  all  the  others 
(till  the  caterpillars  finally  finish  their  exist- 
ence) will  look  but  poor,  lean  things.  But  the 
cabbage  will  be  a  source  of  pride  and  an  object 
of  display  to  visitors;  in  fact  it  would  ultimately 
have  grown  to  be  a  real  cabbage,  such  as  you 
buy  for  ten  cents  at  any  market,  were  it  not 
that  you  inevitably  cut  it  and  eat  it  when  it  is 
still  only  half-grown. 

This  always  happens  to  the  one  cabbage  that 
is  of  decent  size,  and  to  the  one  tomato  that 
shows  signs  of  turning  red  (it  is  really  a  feeble 
green-pink),  and  to  the  only  melon  that  might 
have  lived  to  ripen.  They  get  eaten.  No  one 
but  a  practised  professional  gardener  can  live 
and  sleep  beside  a  melon  three-quarters  ripe  and 
a  cabbage  two-thirds  grown  without  going  out 
and  tearing  it  off  the  stem. 

Even  at  that  It  is  not  a  bad  plan  to  eat  the 
stuff  while  you  can.     The  most  peculiar  thing 
about  gardening  is  that  all  of  a  sudden  every- 
232 


Back  From  the  Land 


thing  Is  too  old  to  eat.  Radishes  change  over 
night  from  delicate  young  shoots  not  large 
enough  to  put  on  the  table  into  huge  plants 
seven  feet  high  with  a  root  like  an  Irish  shilla- 
leh.  If  you  take  your  eyes  off  a  lettuce  bed  for 
a  week  the  lettuces,  not  ready  to  eat  when  you 
last  looked  at  them,  have  changed  Into  a  tall 
jungle  of  hollyhocks.  Green  peas  are  only 
really  green  for  about  two  hours.  Before  that 
they  are  young  peas;  after  that  they  are  old 
peas.  Cucum.bers  are  the  worst  case  of  all. 
They  change  overnight  from  delicate  little  bulbs 
obviously  too  slight  and  dainty  to  pick,  to  old 
cases  of  yellow  leather  filled  with  seeds. 

If  I  were  ever  to  garden  again,  a  thing  which 
is  cut  of  the  bounds  of  possibility,  I  should  wait 
until  a  certain  day  and  hour  when  all  the  plants 
were  ripe,  and  then  go  out  with  a  gun  and 
shoot  them  all  dead,  so  that  they  could  grow  no 
more. 

But  calculation,  I  repeat,  Is  the  bane  of  gar- 
dening. I  knew  among  our  group  of  food  pro- 
ducers,   a   party   of   young   engineers,   college 

233 


Frenzied  Fiction 


men,  who  took  an  empty  farm  north  of  the 
city  as  the  scene  of  their  summer  operations. 
They  took  their  coats  off  and  applied  'college 
methods.  They  ran  out,  first,  a  base  line  AB, 
and  measured  off  from  It  lateral  spurs  MN, 
OP,  QR,  and  so  on.  From  these  they  took  side 
angles  with  a  theodolite  so  as  to  get  the  edges 
of  each  of  the  separate  plots  of  their  land  abso- 
lutely correct.  I  saw  them  working  at  it  all 
through  one  Saturday  afternoon  In  May.  They 
talked  as  they  did  it  of  the  peculiar  ignorance 
of  the  so-called  practical  farmer.  He  never — 
so  they  agreed — uses  his  head.  He  never — I 
think  I  have  their  phrase  correct — stops  to 
think.  In  laying  out  his  ground  for  use.  It  never 
occurs  to  him  to  try  to  get  the  maximum  re- 
sult from  a  given  space.  If  a  farmer  would  only 
realise  that  the  contents  of  a  circle  represent 
the  maximum  of  space  enclosable  In  a  given 
perimeter,  and  that  any  one  circle  Is  merely  a 
function  of  its  own  radius,  what  a  lot  of  time 
he  would  save. 

These  young  men  that  I  speak  of  laid  out 
their   field   engineer-fashion   with   little    white 

234 


Bach  From  the  Land 


posts  at  even  distances.  They  made  a  blue- 
print of  the  whole  thing  as  they  planted  it. 
Every  comer  of  it  was  charted  out.  The  yield 
was  calculated  to  a  nicety.  They  had  allowed 
for  the  fact  that  some  of  the  stuff  might  fail  to 
grow  by  Introducing  what  they  called  "a  co- 
efficient of  error."  By  means  of  this  and  by 
reducing  the  variation  of  autumn  prices  to  a 
mathematical  curve,  those  men  not  only  knew 
already  In  the  middle  of  May  the  exact  yield  of 
their  farm  to  within  half  a  bushel  (they  al- 
lowed, they  said,  a  variation  of  half  a  bushel 
per  fifty  acres),  but  they  knew  beforehand 
within  a  few  cents  the  market  value  that  they 
would  receive.  The  figures,  as  I  remember 
them,  were  simply  amazing.  It  seemed  incredi- 
ble that  fifty  acres  could  produce  so  much.  Yet 
there  were  the  plain  facts  in  front  of  one,  cal- 
culated out.  The  thing  amounted  practically 
to  a  revolution  in  farming.  At  least  it  ought  to 
have.  And  it  would  have  if  those  young  men 
had  come  back  again  to  hoe  their  field.  But 
it  turned  out,  most  unfortunately,  that  they  were 
busy.    To  their  great  regret  they  were  too  busy 


Frenzied  Fiction 


to  come.  They  had  been  working  under  a  free 
and  easy  arrangement.  Each  man  was  to  give 
what  time  he  could  every  Saturday.  It  was  left 
to  every  man's  honour  to  do  what  he  could. 
There  was  no  compulsion.  Each  man  trusted 
the  others  to  be  there.  In  fact  the  thing  was 
not  only  an  experiment  in  food  production,  it 
was  also  a  new  departure  in  social  co-operation. 
The  first  Saturday  that  those  young  men 
worked  there  were,  so  I  have  been  told,  seventy- 
five  of  them  driving  in  white  stakes  and  run- 
ning lines.  The  next  Saturday  there  were  fif- 
teen of  them  planting  potatoes.  The  rest  were 
busy.  The  week  after  that  there  was  one  man 
hoeing  weeds.  After  that  silence  fell  upon  the 
deserted  garden,  broken  only  by  the  cry  of  the 
chick-a-dee  and  the  choo-choo  feeding  on  the 
waving  heads  of  the  thistles. 

But  I  have  indicated  only  two  or  three  of  the 
ways  of  failing  at  food  production.  There  are 
ever  so  many  more.  What  amazes  me  is,  in  re- 
turning to  the  city,  to  find  the  enormous  quanti- 
ties of  produce  of  all  sorts  offered  for  sale  in 
236 


Back  From  the  Land 


the  markets.  It  is  an  odd  thing  that  last  spring, 
by  a  queer  oversight,  we  never  thought,  any  of 
us,  of  this  process  of  increasing  the  supply.  If 
every  patriotic  man  would  simply  take  a  large 
basket  and  go  to  the  market  every  day  and 
buy  all  that  he  could  carry  away  there  need  be 
no  further  fear  of  a  food  famine. 

And,  meantime,  my  own  vegetables  are  on 
their  way.  They  are  in  a  soap  box  with  bars 
across  the  top,  coming  by  freight.  They  weigh 
forty-six  pounds,  including  the  box.  They  rep- 
resent the  result  of  four  months'  arduous  toil 
in  sun,  wind,  and  storm.  Yet  it  is  pleasant 
to  think  that  I  shall  be  able  to  feed  with  them 
some  poor  family  of  refugees  during  the  rigour 
of  the  winter.  Either  that  or  feed  them  to  the 
hens.  I  certainly  won't  eat  the  rotten  things 
myself. 


237 


XV.— The  Perplexity  Column 

AS  DONE  BY  THE  JADED  JOURNALIST 

INSTANTANEOUS  ANSWERS   TO  ALL 
QUESTIONS 

(All  questions  written  out  legibly  with  the 
name  and  address  of  the  sender  and  ac- 
companied by  one  dollar,  answered  immedi- 
ately and  without  charge.) 

Harvard  Student  asks: 

Can  you  tell  me  the  date  at  which,  or  on 
which,   Oliver   Cromwell's  father  died? 
Answer.     No,  I  can't. 

Student   of  Mathematics   asks: 

Will  you  kindly  settle  a  matter  involving  a 

wager  between  myself  and  a  friend?     A.  bet 

B.  that  a  pedestrian  in  walking  downhill  over 

a   given   space   and   alternately  stepping  with 

238 


The  Perplexity  Column 


either  foot,  covers  more  ground  than  a  man 
coasting  over  the  same  road  on  a  bicycle. 
Which  of  us  wins? 

Answer,  I  don't  understand  the  question, 
and  I  don't  know  which  of  you  is  A. 

Chess-player  asks: 
Is   the   Knight's  gambit  recognised  now  as 
a  permissible  opening  In  chess? 
Answer.     I  don't  play  chess. 

Reuben  Booh  asks: 

For  some  time  past  I  have  been  calling  upon 
a  young  lady  friend  at  her  house  evenings  and 
going  out  with  her  to  friends'  nights.  I  should 
like  to  know  if  It  would  be  all  right  to  ask  to 
take  her  alone  'with  me  to  the  theatre  ? 

Answer.  Certainly  not.  This  column  Is 
very  strict  about  these  things.  Not  alone.  Not 
for  a  moment.  It  Is  better  taste  to  bring  your 
father  with  you. 

Auction  asks: 
In  playing  bridge  please  tell  me  whether  the 
third  or  the  second  player  ought  to   discard 

239 


Frenzied  Fiction 


from  weakness  on  a  long  suit  when  trumps 
have  been  twice  round  and  the  lead  is  with 
dummy. 

Answer,     Certainly. 

Lady  of  Society  asks: 

Can  you  tell  me  whether  the  widow  of  a 
marquis  is  entitled  to  go  in  to  dinner  before 
the  eldest  daughter  of  an  earl? 

Answer,  Ha  I  ha !  This  is  a  thing  we 
know — something  that  we  do  know.  You  put 
your  foot  in  it  when  you  asked  us  that.  We 
have  lived  this  sort  of  thing  too  long  ever  to 
make  any  error.  The  widow  of  a  marquis, 
whom  you  should  by  rights  call  a  marchioness 
dowager  (but  we  overlook  it — you  meant  no 
harm)  is  entitled  (in  any  hotel  that  we  know 
or  frequent)  to  go  in  to  dinner  whenever,  and 
as  often,  as  she  likes.  On  a  dining  car  the 
rule  is  the  other  way. 

Vassar  Girl  asks: 

What  is  the  date  of  the  birth  of  Caracalla  ? 
Answer. — I  couldn't  say. 
240 


The  Perplexity  Column 


Lexicographer  asks: 

Can  you  tell  me  the  proper  way  to  spell 
"dog"? 

Answer.  Certainly.  "Dog"  should  be 
spelt,  properly  and  precisely,  "dog."  When  it 
is  used  in  the  sense  to  mean  not  ^^a  dog"  or  '^one 
dog"  but  two  or  more  dogs — in  other  words 
what  we  grammarians  are  accustomed  to  call 
the  plural — it  is  proper  to  add  to  it  the  diph- 
thong, s,  pronounced  with  a  hiss  like  z  in  soup. 

But  for  all  these  questions  of  spelling  your 
best  plan  is  to  buy  a  copy  of  Our  Standard  Dic- 
tionary, published  in  ten  volumes,  by  this  news- 
paper, at  forty  dollars. 

Ignoramus  asks: 
Can  you  tell  me  how  to  spell  "cat"? 
Answer,     Didn't  you  hear  what  we  just  said 
about  how  to  spell  "dog"  ?    Buy  the  Dictionary. 

Careworn  Mother  asks: 
I  am  most  anxious  to  find  out  the  relation  of 
the  earth's  diameter  to  its  circumference.     Can 
you,  or  any  of  your  readers,  assist  me  in  it? 
241 


Frenzied  Fiction 


Answer.  The  earth's  circumference  is  esti- 
mated to  be  three  decimal  one  four  one  five 
nine  of  its  diameter,  a  fixed  relation  indicated 
by  the  Greek  letter  pi.  If  you  like  we  will  tell 
you  what  pi  is.     Shall  we  ? 

*^ Brink  of  Suicide*^  writes: 

Can  you,  will  you,  tell  me  what  is  the  Sanjak 
of  Novi  Bazar? 

Answer.  The  Sanjak  of  Novi  Bazar  Is 
bounded  on  the  north  by  its  northern  frontier, 
cold  and  cheerless,  and  covered  during  the 
winter  with  deep  snow.  The  east  of  the  San- 
jak occupies  a  more  easterly  position.  Here 
the  sun  rises — at  first  slowly,  but  gathering 
speed  as  It  goes.  After  having  traversed  the 
entire  width  of  the  whole  Sanjak,  the  mag- 
nificent orb,  slowly  and  regretfully,  sinks  into 
the  west.  On  the  south,  where  the  soil  is  more 
fertile  and  where  the  land  begins  to  be  worth 
occupying,  the  Sanjak  is,  or  will  be,  bounded 
by  the  British  Empire. 


242 


XVI, — Simple  Stories  of  Success 
or  How  to  Succeed  in  Life 

LET  me  begin  with  a  sort  of  parable. 
Many  years  ago  when  I  was  on  the 
staff  of  a  great  public  school,  we  en- 
gaged a  new  swimming  master. 
He  was  the  most  successful  man  in  that  ca- 
pacity that  we  had  had  for  years. 

Then  one  day  It  was  discovered  that  he 
couldn't  swim. 

He  was  standing  at  the  edge  of  the  swim- 
ming tank  explaining  the  breast  stroke  to  the 
boys  in  the  water. 

He  lost  his  balance  and  fell  In.  He  was 
drowned. 

Or  no, — he  wasn't  drowned, — I  remember, 
r— he  was  rescued  by  some  of  the  pupils  whom 
he  had  taught  to  swim. 

After  he  was  resuscitated  by  the  boys — it 
243 


Frenzied  Fiction 


was  one  of  the  things  he  had  taught  them — 
the  school  dismissed  him. 

Then  some  of  the  boys  who  were  sorry  for 
him  taught  him  how  to  swim,  and  he  got  a  new 
job  as  a  swimming  master  in  another  place. 

But  this  time  he  was  an  utter  failure.  He 
swam  well,  but  they  said  he  couldn't  teach. 

So  his  friends  looked  about  to  get  him  a  new 
job.  This  was  just  at  the  time  when  the  bicycle 
craze  came  In.  They  soon  found  the  man  a 
position  as  an  instructor  In  bicycle  riding.  As 
he  had  never  been  on  a  bicycle  In  his  life,  he 
made  an  admirable  teacher.  He  stood  fast  on 
the  ground  and  said,  "Now  then,  all  you  need 
is  confidence.*' 

Then  one  day  he  got  afraid  that  he  might 
be  found  out.  So  he  went  out  to  a  quiet  place 
and  got  on  a  bicycle,  at  the  top  of  a  slope,  to 
learn  to  ride  it.  The  bicycle  ran  away  with 
him.  But  for  the  skill  and  daring  of  one  of 
his  pupils,  who  saw  him  and  rode  after  him, 
he  would  have  been  killed. 

This  story,   as  the  reader  sees.   Is  endless. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  man  I  speak  of  Is  now 
244 


Simple  Stories  of  Success 


in  an  aviation  school  teaching  people  to  fly. 
They  say  he  Is  one  of  the  best  aviators  that 
ever  walked. 

According  to  all  the  legends  and  story  books, 
the  principal  factor  in  success  is  perseverance. 
Personally,  I  think  there  is  nothing  in  it.  If 
anything,  the  truth  lies  the  other  way. 

There  is  an  old  motto  that  runs,  *7/  at  first 
you  don^t  succeed,  try,  try  againJ^  This  Is  non- 
sense. It  ought  to  read — "If  at  first  you  don't 
succeed,  quit,  quit,  at  once." 

If  you  can't  do  a  thing,  more  or  less,  the 
first  time  you  try,  you  will  never  do  it.  Try 
something  else  while  there  is  yet  time. 

Let  me  illustrate  this  with  a  story. 

I  remember,  long  years  ago,  at  a  little  school 
that  I  attended  in  the  country,  we  had  a  school- 
master, who  used  perpetually  to  write  on  the 
blackboard,  in  a  copperplate  hand,  the  motto 
that  I  have  just  quoted : — 

"//  at  first  you  don^t  succeed, 
Try,  try,  again  J ^ 

245 


Frenzied  Fiction 


He  wore  plain  clothes  and  had  a  hard,  de- 
termined face.  •  He  was  studying  for  some  sort 
of  preliminary  medical  examination,  and  was 
saving  money  for  a  medical  course.  Every 
now  and  then  he  went  away  to  the  city  and 
tried  the  examination:  and  he  always  failed. 
Each  time  he  came  back,  he  would  write  up  on 
the  blackboard — 

^'Try,  try,  again/* 

And  always  he  looked  grimmer  and  more  de- 
termined than  before.  The  strange  thing  was 
that  with  all  his  industr}?-  and  determination, 
he  would  break  out  every  now  and  then  into 
drunkenness,  and  lie  round  the  tavern  at  the 
crossroads,  and  the  school  would  be  shut  for 
two  days.  Then  he  came  back,  more  fiercely 
resolute  than  ever.  Even  children  could  see 
that  the  man's  life  was  a  fight.  It  was  like  the 
battle  between  Good  and  Evil  in  Milton's  epics. 
Well,  after  he  had  tried  it  four  times,  the 
schoolmaster  at  last  passed  the  examination; 
and  he  went  away  to  the  city  in  a  suit  of  store 
246 


Simple  Stories  of  Success 


clothes,  with  eight  hundred  dollars  that  he  had 
saved  up,  to  study  medicine.  Now  it  happened 
that  he  had  a  brother  who  was  not  a  bit  like 
himself,  but  was  a  sort  of  ne'er-do-well,  always 
hard-up  and  sponging  on  other  people,  and 
never  working. 

And  when  the  schoolmaster  came  to  the  city 
and  his  brother  knew  that  he  had  eight  hun- 
dred dollars,  he  came  to  him  and  got  him  drink- 
ing and  persuaded  him  to  hand  over  the  eight 
hundred  dollars  and  to  let  him  put  it  into  the 
Louisiana  State  lottery.  In  those  days  the 
Louisiana  Lottery  had  not  yet  been  forbidden 
the  use  of  the  mails,  and  you  could  buy  a  ticket 
for  anything  from  one  dollar  up.  The  Grand 
Prize  was  two  hundred  thousand  dollars,  and 
the  Seconds  were  a  hundred  thousand  each. 

So  the  brother  persuaded  the  schoolmaster  to 
put  the  money  in.  He  said  he  had  a  system  for 
buying  only  the  tickets  with  prime  numbers, 
that  won't  divide  by  anything,  and  that  it  must 
win.  He  said  it  was  a  mathematical  certainty, 
and  he  figured  it  out  with  the  schoolmaster  in 
the  back  room  of  a  saloon,  with  a  box  of  domi- 
247 


Frenzied  Fiction 


noes  on  the  table  to  show  the  plan  of  it.  He 
told  the  schoolmaster  that  he  himself  would 
only  take  ttn  per  cent  of  what  they  made,  as  a 
commission  for  showing  the  system,  and  the 
schoolmaster  could  have  the  rest. 

So  in  a  mad  moment,  the  schoolmaster  hand- 
ed over  his  roll  of  money,  and  that  was  the 
last  he  ever  saw  of  It. 

The  next  morning  when  he  was  up  he  was 
fierce  with  rage  and  remorse  for  .vhat  he  had 
done.  He  could  not  go  back  to  the  school, 
and  he  had  no  money  to  go  forward.  So  he 
stayed  where  he  w^as  in  the  little  hotel  where  he 
had  got  drunk,  and  went  on  drinking.  He 
looked  so  fierce  and  unkempt,  that  in  the  hotel 
they  were  afraid  of  him,  and  the  bartenders 
watched  him  out  of  the  corners  of  their  eyes 
wondering  what  he  would  do:  because  they 
knew  that  there  was  only  one  end  possible,  and 
they  waited  for  it  to  come.  And  presently  it 
came.  One  of  the  bartenders  went  up  to  the 
schoolmaster's  room  to  bring  up  a  letter,  and 
he  found  him  lying  on  the  bed  with  his  face 
grey  as  ashes,  and  his  eyes  looking  up  at  the 
248 


Simple  Stories  of  Success 


ceiling.     He  was  stone  dead.     Life  had  beaten 
him. 

And  the  strange  thing  was  that  the  letter  that 
the  bartender  carried  up  that  morning  was  from 
the  management  of  the  Louisiana  Lottery.  It 
contained  a  draft  on  New  York,  signed  by  the 
treasurer  of  the  State  of  Louisiana,  for  two 
hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  schoolmaster 
had  won  the  Grand  Prize. 

The  above  story,  I  am  afraid,  Is  a  little 
gloomy.  I  put  It  down  merely  for  the  moral 
it  contained,  and  I  became  so  absorbed  in  tell- 
ing It  that  I  almost  forgot  what  the  moral  was 
that  It  was  meant  to  convey.  But  I  think  the 
idea  is  that  if  the  schoolmaster  had  long  before 
abandoned  the  study  of  medicine,  for  which  he 
was  not  fitted,  and  gone  in,  let  us  say,  for  play- 
ing the  banjo,  he  might  have  become  end-man 
in  a  minstrel  show.    Yes,  that  was  it. 

Let  me  pass  on  to  other  elements  in  success. 

I  suppose  that  anybody  will  admit  that  the 
peculiar  quality  that  is  called  initiative, — ^the 
ability  to  act  promptly  on  one's  own  judgment, 
— is  a  factor  of  the  highest  importance. 
249 


Frenzied  Fiction 


I  have  seen  this  illustrated  two  or  three  trmes 
in  a  very  striking  fashion. 

I  knew,  in  Toronto, — it  is  long  years  ago, — 
a  singularly  bright  young  man  whose  name  Vvas 
Robinson.  He  had  had  some  training  in  the 
iron  and  steel  business,  and  when  I  knew  him 
was  on  the  look-out  for  an  opening. 

I  met  him  one  day  in  a  great  hurry,  with  a 
valise  in  his  hand. 

**Where  are  you  going?''  I  asked. 

**Over  to  England,"  he  said.  "There  is  a 
firm  in  Liverpool  that  have  advertised  that  they 
want  an  agent  here,  and  I'm  going  over  to  apply 
for  the  job." 

**Can't  you  do  it  by  letter  ?""  I  asked. 

"That's  just  it,"  said  Robinson,  with  a 
chuckle,  "all  the  other  men  will  apply  by  let- 
ter. I'll  go  right  over  myself  and  get  there 
as  soon  or  sooner  than  the  letters.  I'll  be  the 
man  on  the  spot,  and  I'll  get  the  job." 

He  was  quite  right.  He  went  over  to  Liver- 
pool, and  was  back  in  a  fortnight  with  English 
clothes  and  a  big  salary. 

But  I  cannot  recommend  his  story  to  my 
250 


Simple  Stories  of  Success 


friends.  In  fact,  It  should  not  be  told  too 
freely.     It  Is  apt  to  be  dangerous. 

I  remember  once  telling  this  story  of  Robin- 
son to  a  young  man  called  Tomllnson,  who  was 
out  of  a  job.  Tomlinson  had  a  head  two  sizes 
too  big,  and  a  face  like  a  bun.  He  had  lost 
three  jobs  In  a  bank  and  two  In  a  broker's  of- 
fice, but  he  knew  his  work,  and  on  paper  he 
looked  a  good  man. 

I  told  him  about  Robinson,  to  encourage  him, 
and  the  story  made  a  great  Impression. 

"Say,  that  was  a  great  scheme,  eh?"  he  kept 
repeating.  He  had  no  command  of  words,  and 
always  said  the  same  thing  over  and  over. 

A  few  days  later  I  met  Tomlinson  on  the 
street  with  a  valise  In  his  hand. 

"Where  are  you  going?"  I  asked. 

"Pm  off  to  Mexico,"  he  answered.  "They're 
advertising  for  a  Canadian  teller  for  a  bank  in 
Tuscapulco.  I've  sent  my  credentials  down, 
and  I'm  going  to  follow  them  right  up  In  per- 
son. In  a  thing  like  this,  the  personal  element 
is  everything." 

So  Tomlinson  went  down  to  Mexico  and  he 
251 


Frenzied  Fiction 


travelled  by  sea  to  Mexico  City,  and  then  with 
a  mule  train  to  Tuscapulco.  But  the  mails,  with 
his  credentials  went  by  land  and  got  there  two 
days  ahead  of  him. 

When  Tomlinson  got  to  Tuscapulco  he  went 
into  the  bank  and  he  spoke  to  the  junior  man- 
ager and  told  him  what  he  came  for.  "I'm 
awfully  sorry,"  the  junior  manager  said,  "I'm 
afraid  that  this  post  has  just  been  filled."  Then 
he  went  into  an  inner  room  to  talk  with  the 
manager.  "The  tellership  that  you  wanted  a 
Canadian  for,"  he  asked,  "didn't  you  say  that 
you  have  a  man  already?" 

"Yes,"  said  the  manager,  "a  brilliant  young 
fellow  from  Toronto;  his  nam.e  is  Tomlinson, 
I  have  his  credentials  here — a  first  class  man. 
I've  wired  him  to  come  right  along,  at  our  ex- 
pense, and  we'll  keep  the  job  open  for  him  ten 
days." 

"There's  a  young  man  outside,"  said  the  jun- 
ior, "who  wants  to  apply  for  the  job." 

"Outside?"  exclaimed  the  manager.  "How 
did  he  get  here?" 

252 


Simple  Stories  of  Success 


*'Came  In  on  the  mule  train  this  morning: 
says  he  can  do  the  work  and  wants  the  job." 

"What's  he  like?"  asked  the  manager. 

The  junior  shook  his  head.  "Pretty  dusty 
looking  customer,"  he  said;  "shifty  looking." 

"Same  old  story,"  murmured  the  manager. 
"It's  odd  how  these  fellows  drift  down  here, 
isn't  it?  Up  to  something  crooked  at  home, 
I  suppose.  Understands  the  working  of  a  bank, 
eh?  I  guess  he  understands  it  a  little  too  well 
for  my  taste.  No,  no,"  he  continued,  "tapping 
the  papers  that  lay  on  the  table,  "now  that 
we've  got  a  first  class  man  like  Tomlinson,  let's 
hang  on  to  him.  We  can  easily  wait  ten  days, 
and  the  cost  of  the  journey  Is  nothing  to  the 
bank  as  compared  with  getting  a  man  of  Tom- 
llnson's  stamp.  And,  by  the  way,  you  might 
telephone  to  the  Chief  of  Police  and  get  him 
to  see  to  it  that  this  loafer  gets  out  of  town 
straight  off." 

So  the  Chief  of  Police  shut  up  Tomlinson  In 
the  calaboose  and  then  sent  him  down  to  Mex- 
ico City  under  a  guard.  By  the  time  the  police 
were  done  with  him  he  was  dead  broke,  and 


Frenzied  Fiction 


it  took  him  four  months  to  get  back  to  To- 
ronto; when  he  got  there,  the  place  in  Mexico 
had  been  filled  long  ago. 

But  I  can  imagine  that  some  of  my  readers 
might  suggest  that  I  have  hitherto  been  dealing 
only  with  success  in  a  very  limited  way,  and 
that  more  interest  would  lie  in  discussing  how 
the  really  great  fortunes  are  made. 

Everybody  feels  an  instinctive  interest  in 
knowing  how  our  great  captains  of  industry, 
our  financiers  and  railroad  magnates  made  their 
money. 

Here  the  explanation  is  really  a  very  simple 
one.  There  is,  in  fact,  only  one  way  to  amass 
a  huge  fortune  in  business  or  railway  manage- 
ment. One  must  begin  at  the  bottom.  One 
must  mount  the  ladder  from  the  lowest  rung. 
But  this  lowest  rung  is  everything.  Any  man 
who  can  stand  upon  it  with  his  foot  well  poised, 
his  head  erect,  his  arms  braced  and  his  eye  di- 
rected upward,  will  inevitably  mount  to  the 
top. 

But  after  all — I  say  this  as  a  kind  of  after- 
254 


Simple  Stories  of  Success 


thought  in  conclusion.  Why  bother  with  suc- 
cess at  all?  I  have  observed  that  the  successful 
people  get  very  little  real  enjoyment  out  of 
life.  In  fact  the  contrary  is  true.  If  I  had 
to  choose — with  an  eye  to  having  a  really  pleas- 
ant life — between  success  and  ruin,  I  should 
prefer  ruin  every  time.  I  have  several  friends 
who  are  completely  ruined — some  two  or  three 
times — In  a  large  way  of  course ;  and  I  find  that 
if  I  want  to  get  a  really  good  dinner,  where 
the  champagne  is  just  as  it  ought  to  be,  and 
where  hospitality  is  unhindered  by  mean 
thoughts  of  expense,  I  can  get  it  best  at  the 
house  of  a  ruined  man. 


255 


XVIL — In  Dry  Toronto 

A  LOCAL  STUDY  OF  A  UNIVERSAL  TOPIC 

NOTE — Our  readers — our  numerous  read- 
ers— who  live  in  Equatorial  Africa,  may  read 
this  under  the  title  ^^In  Dry  Timhucto^' ;  those 
who  live  in  Central  America  will  kindly  call  it 
*^In  Dry  Tehauntepec/' 

IT  may  have  been,  for  aught  I  know,  the 
change  from  a  wet  to  a  dry  atmosphere. 
I  am  told  that,  biologically,  such  things 
profoundly  affect  the  human  system. 
At  any  rate  I  found  it  impossible  that  night 
— I    was    on    the    train    from    Montreal    to 
Toronto — to  fall  asleep. 

A  peculiar  wakefulness  seemed  to  have 
seized  upon  me,  which  appeared,  moreover,  to 
afflict  the  other  passengers  as  well.  In  the 
darkness  of  the  car  I  could  distinctly  hear 
them  groaning  at  intervals.  "Are  they  ill?" 
256 


In  Dry  Toronto 


I  asked,  through  the  curtains,  of  the  porter 
as  he  passed.  "No,  sir,"  he  said,  "they're  not 
ill.  Those  Is  the  Toronto  passengers."  "All 
in  this  car?"  I  asked.  "All  except  that  gen'l- 
man  you  may  have  heard  singing  in  the  smok- 
ing compartment.  He's  booked  through  to 
Chicago." 

But,  as  Is  usual  In  such  cases,  sleep  came  at 
last  with  unusual  heaviness.  I  seemed  oblit- 
erated from  the  world  till,  all  of  a  sudden,  I 
found  myself,  as  It  were,  up  and  dressed  and 
seated  In  the  observation  car  at  the  back  of 
the  train,  awaiting  my  arrival. 

"Is  this  Toronto?"  I  asked  of  the  Pullman 
conductor,  as  I  peered  through  the  window  of 
the  car. 

The  conductor  rubbed  the  pane  with  his 
finger  and  looked  out.     "I  think  so,"  he  said. 

"Do  we  stop  here?"  I  asked. 

"I  think  we  do  this  morning,"  he  answered. 
"I  think  I  heard  the  conductor  say  that  they 
have  a  lot  of  milk  cans  to  put  off  here  this 
morning.    I'll  just  go  and  find  out,  sir." 
257 


Frenzied  Fiction 


"Stop  here!''  broke  In  an  Irascible-looking 
gentleman  in  a  grey  tweed  suit  who  was  sitting 
in  the  next  chair  to  mine.  "Do  they  stop  here? 
I  should  say  they  did  indeed.  Don't  you 
know,"  he  added,  turning  to  the  Pullman  con- 
ductor, "that  any  train  is  compelled  to  stop 
here.  There's  a  bye-law,  a  municipal  bye-law 
of  the  City  of  Toronto,  coinpelling  every  train 
to  stop?'* 

"I  didn't  know  it,"  said  the  conductor 
humbly. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say,"  continued  the  irasci- 
ble gentleman,  "that  you  have  never  read  the 
bye-laws  of  the  City  of  Toronto?" 

"No,  sir,"  said  the  conductor. 

"The  ignorance  of  these  fellows,"  said  the 
man  In  grey  tweed,  swinging  his  chair  round 
again  towards  me.  "We  ought  to  have  a  bye- 
law  to  compel  them  to  read  the  bye-laws.  I 
must  start  an  agitation  for  it  at  once."  Here 
he  took  out  a  little  red  notebook  and  wrote 
something  in  it,  murmuring — "We  need  a  new 
agitation  anyway." 

258 


In  Dry  Toronto 


Presently  he  shut  the  book  up  with  a  snap. 
I  noticed  that  there  was  a  sort  of  peculiar 
alacrity  In  everything  he  did. 

**You,  sir,"  he  said,  "have,  of  course,  read 
our  municipal  bye-laws?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  I  answered.  "Splendid,  aren't 
they?     They  read  lUe  a  romance." 

"You  are  most  flattering  to  our  city,"  said 
the  irascible  gentleman  with  a  bow.  "Yet  you, 
sir,  I  take  it,  are  not  from  Toronto." 

"No,"  I  answered,  as  humbly  as  I  could, 
"Fm  from  Montreal." 

"Ah!"  said  the  gentleman,  as  he  sat  back 
and  took  a  thorough  look  at  me.  "From 
Montreal?     Are  you  drunk?" 

"No,"  I  replied,  "I  don't  think  so." 

"But  you  are  suffering  for  a  drink,"  said  my 
new  acquaintance  eagerly.  "You  need  It,  eh? 
You  feel  already  a  kind  of  craving,  eh  what?" 

"No,"  I  answered.  "The  fact  Is  It's  rather 
early  in  the  morning " 

"Quite  so,"  broke  In  the  irascible  gentleman, 
"but  I  understand  that  In  Montreal  all  the 
259 


Frenzied  Fiction 


saloons  are  open  at  seven,  and  even  at  that 
hour  are  crowded,  sir,  crowded.'* 

I  shook  my  head.  "I  think  that  has  been 
exaggerated,"  I  said.  '*In  fact,  we  always  try 
to  avoid  crowding  and  jostling  as  far  as  pos- 
sible. It  Is  generally  understood,  as  a  matter 
of  politeness,  that  the  first  place  In  the  line 
is  given  to  the  clergy,  the  Board  of  Trade,  and, 
the  heads  of  the  universities." 

"Is  It  conceivable!"  said  the  gentleman  In 
grey.  *'One  moment,  please,  till  I  make  a  note. 
*A11  clergy  (I  think  you  said  all^  did  you  not?) 
drunk  at  seven  In  the  morning.'  Deplorable  I 
But  here  we  are  at  the  Union  Station — com- 
modious, Is  It  not?  Justly  admired,  in  fact,  all 
over  the  known  world.  Observe" — he  con- 
tinued as  we  alighted  from  the  train  and  made 
our  way  into  the  station — *'the  upstairs  and 
the  downstairs,  connected  by  flights  of  stairs — 
quite  unique  and  most  convenient — if  you  don't 
meet  your  friends  downstairs  all  you  have  to 
do  is  to  look  upstairs.  If  they  are  not  there, 
you  simply  come  down  again.  But  stop,  you 
260 


In  Dry  Toronto 


are  going  to  walk  up  the  street?  I'll  go  with 
you." 

At  the  outer  door  of  the  station — just  as  I 
had  remembered  it — stood  a  group  of  hotel 
bus-men  and  porters. 

But  how   changed! 

They  were  like  men  blasted  by  a  great  sor- 
row. One,  with  his  back  turned,  was  leaning 
against  a  post,  his  head  buried  on  his  arm. 

''Prince  George  Hotel" — he  groaned  at 
intervals,  "Prince  George  Hotel." 

i\nother  was  bending  over  a  little  handrail, 
his  head  sunk,  his  arms  almost  trailing  to  the 
ground. 

"King  Edward"— he  sobbed,  "King  Ed- 
ward." 

A  third,  seated  on  a  stool,  looked  feebly  up, 
with  tears  visible  in  his  eyes. 

"Walker     House" — he     moaned.        "First 

Class  accommodation  for "  then  he  broke 

down  and  cried. 

"Take  this  handbag,"  I  said  to  one  of  the 
men,  "to  the  Prince  George." 

The  man  ceased  his  groaning  for  a  moment 
261 


Frenzied  Fiction 


and  turned  to  me  with  something  like  passion. 

*'Why  do  you  come  to  usf  he  protested. 
*'Why  not  go  to  one  of  the  others.  Go  to 
him/'  he  added,  as  he  stirred  with  his  foot  a 
miserable  being  who  lay  huddled  on  the  ground 
and  murmured  at  intervals,  "Queen's!  Queen's 
Hotel." 

But  my  new  friend,  who  stood  at  my  elbow, 
came  to  my  rescue. 

"Take  his  bag,"  he  said,  "you've  got  to. 
You  know  the  bye-law.  Take  it  or  I'll  call  a 
policeman.  You  know  me.  My  name's  Nar- 
rowpath.     I'm  on  the  council." 

The  man  touched  his  hat  and  took  the  bag 
with  a  murmured  apology. 

"Come  along,"  said  my  companion,  whom  I 
now  perceived  to  be  a  person  of  dignity  and 
civic  importance.  "I'll  walk  up  with  you,  and 
show  you  the  city  as  we  go." 

We  had  hardly  got  well  upon  the  street  be- 
fore I  realised  the  enormous  change  that  total 
prohibition  had  effected.  Everywhere  were  the 
bright  smiling  faces  of  working  people,  laugh- 
ing and  singing  at  their  tasks,  and,  early  though 
262 


In  Dry  Toronto 


It  was,  cracking  jokes  and  asking  one  another 
riddles  as  they  worked. 

I  noticed  one  man,  evidently  a  city  employee. 
In  a  rough  white  suit,  busily  cleaning  the  street 
with  a  broom  and  singing  to  himself — 

*'How  does  the  little  busy  bee  improve  the 
shining  hotirJ^  Another  employee,  who  was 
handling  a  little  hose  was  singing — *' Little 
drops  of  water,  little  grains  of  sand,  Tra,  la, 
la,  la,  la  la.  Prohibition's  grand,'* 

"Why  do  they  sing?"  I  asked.  "Are  they 
crazy?" 

"Sing?"  said  Mr.  Narrowpath.  "They 
can't  help  It.  They  haven't  had  a  drink  of 
whiskey  for  four  months." 

A  coal  cart  went  by  with  a  driver,  no  longer 
grimy  and  smudged,  but  neatly  dressed  with 
a  high  white  collar  and  a  white  silk  tie. 

My  companion  pointed  at  him  as  he  passed. 
"Hasn't  had  a  glass  of  beer  for  four  months," 
he  said.  "Notice  the  difference.  That  man's 
work  Is  now  a  pleasure  to  him.  He  used  to 
spend  all  his  evenings  sitting  round  In  the  back 
263 


Frenzied  Fiction 


parlours  of  the  saloons  beside  the  stove.    Now 
what  do  you  think  he  does?" 

"I  have  no  idea." 

*'Loads  up  his  cart  with  coal  and  goes  for  a 
drive — out  in  the  country.  Ah,  sir,  you  who 
live  still  under  the  curse  of  the  whiskey  traf- 
fic, little  know  what  a  pleasure  work  itself  be- 
comes when  drink  and  all  that  goes  with  it  is 
eliminated.  Do  you  see  that  man,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  street,  with  the  tool  bag?" 

"Yes,"  I  said,  *'a  plumber,  is  he  not?" 

^'Exactly,  a  plumber — used  to  drink  heavily 
— couldn't  keep  a  job  more  than  a  week.  Now, 
you  can't  drag  him  from  his  work — came  to 
my  house  to  fix  a  pipe  under  the  kitchen  sink 
— wouldn't  quit  at  six  o'clock — got  in  under 
the  sink  and  begged  to  be  allowed  to  stay — 
said  he  hated  to  go  home.  We  had  to  drag 
him  out  with  a  rope.  But  here  we  are  at  your 
hotel." 

We  entered. 

But  how  changed  the  place  seemed. 

Our  feet  echoed  on  the  flagstones  of  the 
deserted  rotunda. 

264 


In  Dry  Toronto 


At  the  office  desk  sat  a  clerk,  silent  and 
melancholy,  reading  the  Bible.  He  put  a 
marker  in  the  book  and  closed  it,  murmuring 
*Xeviticus  Two." 

Then  he  turned  to  us. 

**Can  I  have  a  rocwn,"  I  asked,  "on  the  first 
floor?" 

A  tear  welled  up  into  the  clerk's  eye. 

"You  can  have  the  whole  first  floor,"  he 
said,  and  he  added,  with  a  half  sob,  "and  the 
second,  too,  if  you  like." 

I  could  not  help  contrasting  his  manner  with 
what  it  was  in  the  old  days,  when  the  mere 
mention  of  a  room  used  to  throw  him  into  a 
fit  of  passion,  and  when  he  used  to  tell  me 
that  I  could  have  a  cot  on  the  roof  till  Tues- 
day, and  after  that,  perhaps,  a  bed  in  the 
stable. 

Things  had  changed  indeed. 

"Can  I  get  breakfast  in  the  grill  room?"  I 
inquired  of  the  melancholy  clerk. 

He  shook  his  head  sadly. 

"There    is    no    grill    room,"    he    answered. 
"What  would  you  like?" 
265 


Frenzied  Fiction 


*'0h,  some  sort  of  eggs,"  I  said,  '*and- 


The  clerk  reached  down  below  his  desk  and 
handed  me  a  hard-boiled  egg  with  the  shell 
off. 

"Here's  your  Qgg,''  he  said,  "and  there's  ice 
water  there  at  the  end  of  the  desk." 

He  sat  back  in  his  chair  and  went  on  reading. 

"You  don't  understand,"  said  Mr.  Narrow- 
path,  who  still  stood  at  my  elbow.  "All  that 
elaborate  grill  room  breakfast  business  was 
just  a  mere  relic  of  the  drinking  days — sheer 
waste  of  time  and  loss  of  efficiency.  Go  on 
and  eat  your  egg.  Eaten  it?  Now,  don't  you 
feel  efficient?  What  more  do  you  want? 
Comfort,  you  say?  My  dear  sir!  more  men 
have  been  ruined  by  comfort — Great  Heavens, 
comfort!  The  most  dangerous,  deadly  drug 
that  ever  undermined  the  human  race.  But, 
here,  drink  your  water.  Now  you're  ready  to 
go  and  do  your  business,  if  you  have  any." 

"But,"  I  protested,  "it's  still  only  half-past 
seven    in    the    morning — no    offices    will    be 

open " 

266 


In  Dry  Toronto 


"Open!"      exclaimed      Mr.      Narrowpath. 
"Why!  they  all  open  at  daybreak  now." 

I  had,  it  IS  true,  a  certain  amount  of  busi- 
ness before  me,  though  of  no  very  intricate  or 
elaborate  kind — a  few  simple  arrangements 
with  the  head  of  a  pubhshing  house  such  as  it 
falls  to  my  lot  to  make  every  now  and  then. 
Yet  in  the  old  and  unregenerate  days  it  used 
to  take  all  day  to  do  it :  the  wicked  thing  that 
we  used  to  call  a  comfortable  breakfast  in  the 
hotel  grill  room  somehow  carried  one  on  to 
about  ten  o'clock  in  the  m.orning.  Breakfast 
brought  with  it  the  need  of  a  cigar  for  diges- 
tion's sake  and  with  that,  for  very  restfulness, 
a  certain  perusal  of  the  Toronto  Globe,  prop- 
erly corrected  and  rectified  by  a  look  through 
the  Toronto  Mail.  After  that  it  had  been  my 
practice  to  stroll  along  to  my  publishers'  office 
at  about  eleven-thirty,  transact  my  business, 
over  a  cigar,  with  the  genial  gentleman  at  the 
head  of  it,  and  then  accept  his  invitation  to 
lunch,  with  the  feeling  that  a  man  who  has  put 
in  a  hard  and  strenuous  morning's  work  is  en- 
titled to  a  few  hours  of  relaxation. 
267 


Frenzied  Fiction 


I  am  inclined  to  think  that  in  those  repre- 
hensible bye-gone  times,  many  other  people  did 
their  business  in  this  same  way. 

"I  don't  think,"  I  said  to  Mr.  Narrowpath 
musingly,  "that  my  publisher  will  be  up  as 
early  as  this.  He's  a  comfortable  sort  of 
man." 

"Nonsense!"  said  Mr.  Narrowpath.  "Not 
at  work  at  half-past  seven !  In  Toronto !  The 
thing's  absurd.  Where  is  the  office?  Rich- 
mond Street?  Come  along,  I'll  go  with  you. 
I've  always  a  great  liking  for  attending  to 
other  people's  business." 

"I  see  you  have,"  I  said. 

"It's  our  way  here,"  said  Mr.  Narrowpath 
with  a  wave  of  his  hand.  "Every  man's  busi- 
ness, as  we  see  it,  is  everybody  else's  business. 
Come  along,  you'll  be  surprised  how  quickly 
your  business  will  be  done." 

Mr.  Narrowpath  was  right. 

My    publishers'    office,    as    we    entered    it, 

seemed  a  changed  place.    Activity  and  efficiency 

was  stamped  all  over  it.     My  good  friend  the 

publisher  was  not  only  there,  but  there  with 

268 


In  Dry  Toronto 


his  coat  off,  inordinately  busy,  bawling  orders 
(evidently  meant  for  a  printing  room)  through 
a  speaking  tube.  "Yes,"  he  was  shouting,  ''put 
WHISKEY  in  black  letter  capitals,  old  Eng- 
lish, double  size,  set  it  up  to  look  attractive, 
with  the  legend  made  in  Toronto  in  long 
clear  type  underneath " 

"Excuse  me,"  he  said,  as  he  broke  off  for  a 
moment.  "WeVe  a  lot  of  stuff  going  through 
the  press  this  morning — a  big  distillery  cata- 
logue that  we  are  rushing  through.  We're  do- 
ing all  we  can,  Mr.  Narrowpath,"  he  con- 
tinued, speaking  with  the  deference  due  to  a 
member  of  the  City  Council,  "to  boom  Toronto 
as  a  Whiskey  Centre." 

"Quite  right,  quite  right!"  said  my  com- 
panion, rubbing  his  hands. 

"And  now,  sir,"  added  the  publisher, 
speaking  with  rapidity,  "your  contract  is  all 
here — only  needs  signing — I  won't  keep  you 
mere  than  a  moment — write  your  name  here — • 
Miss  Sniggins  will  you  please  witness  this  so 
help  you  God  how's  everything  in  Montreal 
good   morning." 

269 


Frenzied  Fiction 


"Pretty  quick,  wasn't  it?"  said  Mr.  Narrow- 
path,  as  we  stood  in  the  street  again. 

"Wonderful!"  I  said,  feeling  almost  dazed. 
"Why,  I  shall  be  able  to  catch  the  morning 
train  back  again  to  Montreal " 

"Precisely.  Just  what  everybody  finds. 
Business  done  in  no  time.  Men  who  used  to 
spend  whole  days  here,  clear  out  now  in  fifteen 
minutes.  I  knew  a  man  whose  business  efH- 
ciency  has  so  increased  under  our  new  regime 
that  he  says  he  wouldn't  spend  more  than  five 
minutes  in  Toronto  if  he  were  paid  to." 

"But  what  is  this?"  I  asked  as  we  were 
brought  to  a  pause  in  our  walk  at  a  street 
crossing  by  a  great  block  of  vehicles — "What 
are  all  these  drays?  Surely,  those  look  like 
barrels  of  whiskey!" 

"So  they  are,"  said  Mr.  Narrowpath,  proud* 
ly — '^Export  whiskey.  Fine  sight,  isn't  it? 
—  must  be  what  ?  —  twenty  —  twenty-five  — 
loads  of  it.  This  place,  sir,  mark  my  words, 
is  going  to  prove,  with  its  new  energy  and 
enterprise,  one  of  the  greatest  seats  of  the  dis- 
270 


In  Dry  Toronto 


tUlery  business,  In  fact,  the  whiskey  capital  of 
the  North " 

"But  I  thought,"  I  interrupted,  much 
puzzled,  "that  whiskey  was  prohibited  here 
since  last  September?" 

"Export  whiskey — export,  my  dear  sir," 
corrected  Mr.  Narrowpath.  "We  don't  inter- 
fere, we  have  never,  so  far  as  I  know,  proposed 
to  interfere  with  any  man's  right  to  make  and 
export  whiskey.  That,  sir.  Is  a  plain  matter 
of  business;  morality  doesn't  enter  Into  it." 

"I  see,"  I  answered.  "But  will  you  please 
tell  me  what  is  the  meaning  of  this  other  crowd 
of  drays  coming  in  the  opposite  direction? 
Surely,  those  are  beer  barrels,  are  they  not?" 

"In  a  sense  they  are,"  admitted  Mr.  Nar- 
rowpath. "That  is,  they  are  import  beer.  It 
comes  in  from  some  other  province*  It  was, 
I  imagine,  made  In  this  city  (our  breweries, 
sir,  are  second  to  none),  but  the  sin  of  sellmg 
it" — here  Mr.  Narrowpath  raised  his  hat 
from  his  head  and  stood  for  a  moment  in  a 
reverential  attitude — "rests  on  tl^e  heads  of 
others." 

271 


Frenzied  Fiction 


The  press  of  vehicles  had  now  thinned  out 
and  we  moved  on,  my  guide  still  explaining  in 
some  detail  the  distinction  between  business 
principles  and  moral  principles,  between  whis- 
key as  a  curse  and  whiskey  as  a  source  of  profit, 
which  I  found  myself  unable  to  comprehend. 

At  length  I  ventured  to  interrupt. 

"Yet  it  seems  almost  a  pity,"  I  said,  "that 
with  all  this  beer  and  whiskey  around  an  un- 
regenerate  sinner  like  myself  should  be  pro- 
hibited from  getting  a  drink." 

"A  drink!"  exclaimed  Mr.  Narrowpath. 
"Well,  I  should  say  so.  Come  right  in  here. 
You  can  have  anything  you  want." 

We  stepped  through  a  street  door  into  a 
large,  long  room. 

"Why!"  I  exclaimed  in  surprise;  "this  Is  a 
bar!" 

"Nonsense!"  said  my  friend.  "The  bar  in 
this  province  is  forbidden.  We've  done  with 
the  foul  thing,  forever.  This  Is  an  Import 
Shipping  Company's  Delivery  Office." 

"But  this  long  counter?" 

"It's  not  a  counter,  It's  a  desk.'* 
272 


In  Dry  Toronto 


"And  that  bar-tender  in  his  white  jacket?" 

"Tut!  Tut!  He's  not  a  bar-tender.  He's 
an  Import  Goods  Delivery  Clerk." 

"What'll  you  have  gentlemen?"  said  the 
Import  Clerk,  polishing  a  glass  as  he  spoke. 

"Two  whiskey  and  sodas,"  said  my  friend? 
*'long  ones." 

The  Import  Clerk  mixed  the  drinks  and  set 
them  on  the  desk. 

I  was  about  to  take  one,  but  he  interrupted. 
"One  minute,  sir,"  he  said. 

Then  he  took  up  a  desk  telephone  that  stood 
beside  him  and  I  heard  him  calling  up 
Montreal.  "Hullo,  Montreal!  Is  that  Mon- 
treal? Well,  say,  I've  just  received  an  offer 
here  for  two  whiskey  and  sodas  at  sixty  cents^ 
shall  I  close  with  it?  All  right,  gentlemen, 
Montreal  has  effected  the  sale.  There  you 
are. 

"Dreadful,  isn't  it?"  said  Mr.  Narrowpath. 
"The  sunken,  depraved  condition  of  your  City 
of  Montreal;  actually  selling  whiskey.  De- 
plorable !"  and  with  that  he  buried  his  face  In 
the  bubbles  of  the  whiskey  and  soda. 
273 


Frenzied  Fiction 


"Mr.  Narrowpath,"  I  said,  "would  you 
mind  telling  me  something?  I  fear  I  am  a 
little  confused,  after  what  I  have  seen  here,  as 
to  what  your  new  legislation  has  been.  You 
have  not  then,  I  understand,  prohibited  the 
making  of  whiskey?'* 

"Oh,  no,  we  see  no  harm  in  that." 

"Nor  the  sale  of  it?" 

"Certainly  not,"  said  Mr.  Narrowpath,  "not 
if  sold  properly^ 

"Nor  the  drinking  of  it?" 

"Oh,  no,  that  least  of  all.  We  attach  no 
harm  whatever,  under  our  law,  to  the  mere 
drinking  of  whiskey." 

"Would  you  tell  me  then,"  I  asked,  "since 
you  have  not  forbidden  the  making,  nor  the 
selling,  nor  the  buying,  nor  the  drinking  of 
whiskey — just  what  it  is  that  you  have  pro- 
hibited? What  is  the  difference  between 
Montreal  and  Toronto?" 

Mr.  Narrowpath  put  down  his  glass  on  the 
"desk"  in  front  of  him.  He  gazed  at  me  with 
open-mouthed  astonishment. 

"Toronto?"  he  gasped.  "Montreal  and 
274 


In  Dry  Toronto 


Toronto!  The  difference  between  Montreal 
and  Toronto — -my  dear  sir — Toronto — To- 
ronto  " 

I  stood  waiting  for  him  to  explain.  But  as 
I  did  so  I  seemed  to  become  aware  that  a 
voice — not  Mr.  Narrowpath's,  but  a  voice 
close  at  my  ear,  was  repeating  "Toronto — 
Toronto — Toronto ' ' 

I  sat  up  with  a  start — still  in  my  berth  in  the 
Pullman  car — with  the  voice  of  the  porter 
calling  through  the  curtains  "Toronto — 
Toronto." 

So !  It  had  only  been  a  dream.  I  pulled  up 
the  blind  and  looked  out  of  the  window  and 
there  was  the  good  old  city,  with  the  bright 
sun  sparkling  on  its  church  spires  and  on  the 
bay  spread  out  at  its  feet.  It  looked  quite  un- 
changed— just  the  same  pleasant  old  place,  as 
cheerful,  as  self-conceited,  as  kindly,  as 
hospitable,  as  quarrelsome,  as  wholesome,  as 
moral,  as  loyal  and  as  disagreeable  as  ever. 

"Porter,"   I   said,   "is  it  true  that  there  Is 
prohibition  here  now?"     The  Porter  shook  his 
head.     "I  ain't  heard  of  it,"  he  said. 
275 


XVIII.— Merry  Christmas 

MY  dear  Young  Friend,'^  said  Father 
Time,  as  he  laid  his  hand  gently 
upon  my  shoulder,   ''you   are   en- 
tirely wrong." 
Then  I  looked  up  over  my  shoulder  from 
the  table  at  which  I  was  sitting  and  I  saw  him. 
But  I  had  known,  or  felt,  for  at  least  the 
last  half  hour  that  he  was  standing  somewhere 
near  me. 

You  have  had,  I  do  not  doubt,  good  reader, 
more  than  once  that  strange  uncanny  feeling 
that  there  is  some  one  unseen  standing  be- 
side you — in  a  darkened  room,  let  us  say,  with 
a  dying  fire,  when  the  night  has  grown  late, 
and  the  October  wind  sounds  low  outside,  and 
when,  through  the  thin  curtain  that  we  call 
Reality,  the  Unseen  World  starts  for  a  mo- 
ment clear  upon  our  dreaming  sense. 

You  have  had  it?     Yes,  I  know  you  have. 
276 


Merry  Christmas 


Never  mind  telling  me  about  it.  Stop.  I  don't 
want  to  hear  about  that  strange  presentiment 
you  had  the  night  your  Aunt  Eliza  broke  her 
leg.  Don't  let's  bother  with  your  experience. 
I  want  to  tell  m.ine. 

*'You  are  quite  mistaken,  my  dear  young 
friend,"  repeated  Father  Time,  ''quite  wrong." 

^''Young  friend?"  I  said,  mxy  mind,  as  one's 
mind  is  apt  to  in  such  a  case,  running  to  an  un- 
important detail.  "Why  do  you  call  me 
young?" 

"Your  pardon,"  he  answered  gently — he  had 
a  gentle  way  with  him,  had  Father  Time,  "the 
fault  is  in  my  failing  eyes.  I  took  you  at 
first  sight  for  something  under  a  hundred." 

"Under  a  hundred?"  I  expostulated.  "Well, 
I  should  think  so!" 

"Your  pardon  again,"  said  Time,  "the  fault 
is  in  my  failing  memory.  I  forgot.  You  sel- 
dom pass  that  now-a-days,  do  you?  Your  life 
is  very  short  of  late." 

I  heard  him  breathe  a  wistful  hollow  sigh. 
Very  ancient  and  dim  he  seemed  as  he  stood 
beside  me.  But  I  did  not  turn  to  look  upon 
277 


Frenzied  Fiction 


him.  I  had  no  need  to.  I  knew  his  form,  in 
the  inner  and  clearer  sight  of  things,  as  well 
as  every  human  being  knows  by  innate  instinct 
the  Unseen  face  and  form  of  Father  Time. 

I  could  hear  him  murmuring  beside  me — 
"Short — short,  your  life  is  short" — till  the 
sound  of  it  seemed  to  mingle  with  the  measured 
ticking  of  a  clock  somewhere  in  the  silent 
house. 

Then  I  remembered  what  he  had  said. 

*^How  do  you  know  that  I  am  wrong?"  I 
asked.  "And  how  can  you  tell  what  I  was 
thinking?" 

"You  said  it  out  loud,"  answered  Father 
Time;  "but  it  wouldn't  have  mattered,  anyway. 
You  said  that  Christmas  was  all  played  out 
and  done  with." 

"Yes,"  I  admitted,  "that's  what  I  said." 

"And  what  makes  you  think  that?"  he  ques- 
tioned, stooping,  so  it  seemed  to  me,  still 
further  over  my  shoulder. 

"Why,"  I  answered,  "the  trouble  is  this. 
Fve  been  sitting  here  for  hours,  sitting  till 
goodness  only  knows  how  far  into  the  night, 
278 


Merry  Christmas 


trying  to  think  out  something  to  write  for  a 
Christmas  story.  And  it  won't  go.  It  can't 
be  done — not  in  these  awful  days.'* 

^^A  Christmas  Story?" 

"Yes.  You  see,  Father  Time,"  I  explained, 
glad  with  a  foolish  little  vanity  of  my  trade 
to  be  able  to  tell  him  something  that  I  thought 
enlightening,  "all  the  Christmas  stuff — stories 
and  jokes  and  pictures — is  all  done,  you  know, 
in  October." 

I  thought  it  would  have  surprised  him,  but  I 
was  mistaken. 

"Dear  me  I"  he  said,  "not  till  October! 
What  a  rush!  How  well  I  remember  in  An- 
cient Egypt — as  I  think  you  call  it — seeing 
them  getting  out  their  Christmas  things,  all 
cut  in  hieroglyphics,  always  two  or  three  years 
ahead." 

"Two  or  three  years !"  I  exclaimed. 

"Pooh,"  said  Time,  "that  was  nothing. 
Why  in  Babylon  they  used  to  get  their  Christ- 
mas jokes  ready — all  baked  in  clay — a  whole 
Solar  eclipse  ahead  of  Christmas.  They  said, 
I  think,  that  the  public  preferred  them  so." 
279 


Frenzied  Fiction 


*'Egypt?"  I  said,  "Babylon!  But  surely, 
Father  Time,  there  was  no  Christmas  in  those 
days.     I  thought " 

"My  dear  boy,"  he  interrupted  gravely, 
"don't  you  know  that  there  has  always  been 
Christmas?" 

I  was  silent.  Father  Time  had  moved  across 
the  room  and  stood  beside  the  fireplace,  lean- 
ing on  the  mantel.  The  little  wreaths  of  smoke 
from  the  fading  fire  seemed  to  mingle  with  his 
shadowy  outline. 

"Well,"  he  said  presently,  "what  is  it  that  is 
wrong  with  Christmas?" 

"Why,"  I  answered,  "all  the  romance,  the 
joy,  the  beauty  of  it  has  gone,  crushed  and 
killed  by  the  greed  of  commerce  and  the  hor- 
rors of  war.  I  am  not,  as  you  thought  I  was, 
a  hundred  years  old,  but  I  can  conjure  up,  as 
anybody  can,  a  picture  of  Christmas  in  the  good 
old  days  of  a  hundred  years  ago — the  quaint 
old-fashioned  houses,  standing  deep  among  the 
evergreens,  with  the  light  twinkling  from  the 
windows  on  the  snow — the  warmth  and  comfort 
within — the  great  fire  roaring  on  the  hearth — 
280 


Merry  Christmas 


the  merry  guests  grouped  about  its  blaze  and 
the  little  children  with  their  eyes  dancing  In 
the  Christmas  firelight,  waiting  for  Father 
Christmas  In  his  fine  mummery  of  red  and  white 
and  cotton  wool  to  hand  the  presents  from  the 
Yule-tide  tree.  I  can  see  It,"  I  added,  "as  if 
It  were  yesterday." 

"It  was  but  yesterday,"  said  Father  Time, 
and  his  voice  seemed  to  soften  with  the  mem- 
ory of  by-gone  years.    "I  remember  it  well." 

"Ah,"  I  continued,  "that  was  Christmas 
Indeed.  Give  me  back  such  days  as  those,  with 
the  old  good  cheer,  the  old  stage  coaches  and 
the  gabled  inns  and  the  warm  red  wine,  the 
snap-dragon  and  the  Christmas  tree,  and  I'll 
believe  again  In  Christmas,  yes,  in  Father 
Christmas  himself." 

"Believe  In  him?"  said  Time,  quietly,  "you 
may  well  do  that.  He  happens  to  be  standing 
outside  in  the  street  at  this  moment." 

"Outside?"  I  exclaimed.  "Why  won*t  he 
come  in?" 

"He's  afraid  to,"  said  Father  Time.  "He's 
281 


Frenzied  Fiction 


frightened  and  he  daren't  come  in  unless  you 
ask  him.     May  I  call  him  in?" 

I  signified  assent,  and  Father  Time  went  to 
the  window  for  a  moment  and  beckoned  into 
the  darkened  street.  Then  I  heard  footsteps, 
clumsy  and  hesitant  they  seemed,  upon  the 
stairway.  And  in  a  moment  a  figure  stood 
framed  in  the  doorway — the  figure  of  Father 
Christmas.  He  stood  shuffling  his  feet,  a  timid, 
apologetic  look  upon  his  face. 

How  changed  he  was ! 

I  had  known  in  my  mind's  eye,  from  child- 
hood up,  the  face  and  form  of  Father  Christ- 
mas as  well  as  that  of  Old  Time  himself.  Every- 
body knows,  or  once  knew  him, — a  jolly  little 
rounded  man,  with  a  great  muffler  wound  about 
him,  a  packet  of  toys  upon  his  back  and  with 
such  merry,  twinkling  eyes  and  rosy  cheeks  as 
are  only  given  by  the  touch  of  the  driving  snow 
and  the  rude  fun  of  the  North  Wind.  Why, 
there  was  once  a  time,  not  yet  so  long  ago, 
when  the  very  sound  of  his  sleighbells  sent  the 
blood  running  warm  to  the  heart. 

But  now  how  changed. 
282 


Merry  Christmas 


All  draggled  with  the  mud  and  rain  he  stood, 
as  if  no  house  had  sheltered  him  these  three 
years  past.  His  old  red  jersey  was  tattered 
in  a  dozen  places,  his  muSler  frayed  and 
ravelled. 

The  bundle  of  toys  that  he  dragged  with 
him  in  a  net  seemed  wet  and  worn  till  the  card- 
board boxes  gaped  asunder.  There  were  boxes 
among  them,  I  vow,  that  he  must  have  been 
carrying  these  three  years  past. 

But  most  of  all  I  noted  the  change  that  had 
come  over  the  face  of  Father  Christmas.  The 
old  brave  look  of  cheery  confidence  was  gone. 
The  smile  that  had  beamed  responsive  to  the 
laughing  eyes  of  countless  children  around  un- 
numbered Christmas  trees  was  there  no  more. 
And  in  the  place  of  it  there  showed  a  look  of 
timid  apology,  of  apprehensiveness,  as  of  one 
who  has  asked  in  vain  the  warmth  and  shelter 
of  a  human  home — such  a  look  as  the  harsh 
cruelty  of  this  Vv^orld  has  stamped  upon  the 
faces  of  its  outcasts. 

So  stood  Father  Christmas  shuffling  upon 
283 


Frenzied  Fiction 


the  threshold,  fumbling  his  poor  tattered  hat 
in  his  hand. 

*'Shall  I  come  in?"  he  said,  his  eyes  appeal- 
ingly  on  Father  Time. 

"Come,"  said  Time;  and  added,  as  he  turned 
to  speak  to  me,  "Your  room  is  dark.  Turn 
up  the  hghts.  He's  used  to  light,  bright  light 
and  plenty  of  it.  The  dark  has  frightened  him 
these  three  years  past." 

I  turned  up  the  lights  and  the  bright  glare 
revealed  all  the  more  cruelly  the  tattered  figure 
before  us. 

Father  Christmas  advanced  a  timid  step 
across  the  floor.  Then  he  paused,  as  if  in  sud- 
den fear. 

"Is  this  floor  mined?"   he  said. 

"No,  no,"  said  Time  soothingly.  And  to 
me  he  added  in  a  murmured  whisper — "He's 
afraid.  He  was  blown  up  in  a  mine  in  No 
Man's  Land  between  the  trenches  at  Christmas 
time  in  19 14.     It  broke  his  nerve." 

"May  I  put  my  toys  on  that  machine  gun?" 
asked  Father  Christmas  timidly,  "it  will  help 
to  keep  them  dry." 

284 


Merry  Christmas 


"It  is  not  a  machine  gun,"  said  Time  gently; 
"see,  it  is  only  a  pile  of  books  upon  the  sofa." 
And  to  me  he  whispered:  "They  turned  a 
machine  gun  on  him  in  the  streets  of  Warsaw. 
He  thinks  he  sees  them  everywhere  since 
then." 

"It's  all  right,  Father  Christmas,"  I  said, 
speaking  as  cheerily  as  I  could,  while  I  rose 
and  stirred  the  fire  into  a  blaze,  "there  are  no 
machine  guns  here  and  there  are  no  mines. 
This  is  but  the  house  of  a  poor  writer." 

"Ah,"  said  Father  Christmas,  lowering  his 
tattered  hat  still  further  and  attempting  some- 
thing of  a  humble  bow,  "a  writer?  Are  you 
Hans  Andersen,  perhaps?" 

"Not  quite,"   I   answered. 

"But  a  great  writer,  I  do  not  doubt,"  said 
the  old  man,  with  a  humble  courtesy  that  he 
had  learned,  it  well  may  be,  centuries  ago  in 
the  Yule  Tide  season  of  his  northern  home. 
"The  world  owes  much  to  its  great  books.  I 
carry  some  of  the  greatest  with  me  always.  I 
have  them  here." 

He  began  fumbling  among  the  limp  and  tat- 

285 


Frenzied  Fiction 


tered  packages  that  he  carried — "Look!  The 
House  that  Jack  Built — a  marvellous,  deep 
thing,  sir — and  this.  The  Babes  in  the  Wood. 
Will  you  take  it,  sir?  A  poor  present,  but  z 
present  still — not  so  long  ago  I  gave  them  in 
thousands  every  Christmas  time.  None  seem 
to  want  them  now." 

He  looked  appealingly  towards  Father 
Time,  as  the  weak  may  look  towards  the  strong, 
for  help  and  guidance. 

"None  want  them  now,"  he  repeated,  and  I 
could  see  the  tears  start  in  his  eyes.  "Why 
is  it  so?  Has  the  world  forgotten  its  sympathy 
with  the  lost  children  wandering  in  the  wood?" 

"All  the  world,"  I  heard  Time  murmur  with 
a  sigh,  "is  wandering  in  the  wood." — But  out 
loud  he  spoke  to  Father  Christmas  in  cheery 
admonition — "Tut,  tut,  good  Christmas,"  he 
said,  "you  must  cheer  up.  Here,  sit  in  this 
chair — the  biggest  one — so — beside  the  fire — 
let  us  stir  it  to  a  blaze — more  wood — that's 
better — and  listen,  good  old  Friend,  to  the  wind 
outside — almost  a  Christmas  wind,  is  it  not? 
286 


Meiry  Christinas 


Merry  and  boisterous  enough,  for  all  the  evil 
times  it  stirs  among." 

Old  Christmas  seated  himself  beside  the  fire, 
his  hands  outstretched  towards  the  flames. 
Something  of  his  old-time  cheeriness  seemed 
to  flicker  across  his  features  as  he  warmed 
himself  at  the  blaze. 

"That's  better,"  he  murmured.  "I  was  cold, 
sir,  cold,  chilled  to  the  bone:  of  old  I  never 
felt  it  so;  no  matter  what  the  wind,  the  world 
seemed  warm  about  me.  Why  is  it  not  so 
now?" 

"You  see,"  said  Time,  speaking  low  in  a 
whisper  for  my  ear  alone,  "you  see  how  sunk 
and  broken  he  is?    Will  you  not  help?" 

"Gladly,-"  I  answered,  "if  I  can." 

"All  can,"  said  Father  Time,  "every  one 
of  us." 

Meantime  Christmas  had  turned  towards  mc 
a  questioning  eye,  in  which,  however,  there 
seemed  to  revive  some  little  gleam  of  merri- 
ment. 

"Have  you,  perhaps,"  he  asked  half  timidly, 
"schnapps?" 

287 


Frenzied  Fiction 


"Schnapps?"  I  repeated. 

**Aye,  schnapps.  A  glass  of  it  to  drink  your 
health  might  warm  my  heart  again,  I  think." 

**Ah!"  I  said,  "something  to  drink?" 

"His  one  failing,"  whispered  Time,  "if  it  is 
one.  Forgive  it  him.  He  was  used  to  it  for 
centuries.     Give  it  him  if  you  have  it." 

"I  keep  a  little  in  the  house,"  I  said,  reluct- 
antly perhaps,  "in  case  of  illness." 

"Tut,  tut,"  said  Father  Time,  as  something 
as  near  as  could  be  to  a  smile  passed  over  his 
shadowy  face.  "In  case  of  illness!  They 
used  to  say  that  in  ancient  Babylon.  Here,  let 
me  pour  it  for  him.  Drink,  Father  Christmas, 
drink!" 

Marvellous  it  was  to  see  the  old  man  smack 
his  lips  as  he  drank  his  glass  of  liquor  neat 
after  the  fashion  of  old  Norway. 

Marvellous,  too,  to  see  the  way  In  which, 
with  the  warmth  of  the  fire  and  the  generous 
glow  of  the  spirits,  his  face  changed  and 
brightened  till  the  old-time  dieerfulness 
beamed  again  upon  It. 
288 


Merry  Christmas 


He  looked  about  him,  as  it  were,  with  a  new 
and  growing  interest. 

**A  pleasant  room,"  he  said,  "and  whut  bet- 
ter, sir,  than  the  wind  without  and  a  brave  fire 
within!" 

Then  his  eye  fell  upon  the  mantel  piece, 
where  lay  among  the  litter  of  books  and  pipes 
a  httle  toy  horse. 

"Ah!"  said  Father  Christmas,  almost  gayly, 
"children  in  the  house!" 

"One,"  I  answered,  "the  sweetest  boy  in 
all  the  world." 

"I'll  be  bound  he  is !"  said  Father  Christmas, 
and  he  broke  now  into  a  merry  laugh  that  did 
one's  heart  good  to  hear.  "They  all  are! 
Lord  bless  me !  The  number  that  I  have  seen, 
and  each  and  every  one — and  quite  right,  too 
— the  sweetest  child  in  all  the  world.  And 
how  old,  do  you  say?  Two  and  a  half  all  but 
two  months  except  a  week?  The  very  sweetest 
age  of  all,  I'll  bet  you  say,  eh,  what?  They 
all  do!" 

And  the  old  man  broke  again  into  such  a 
289 


Frenzied  Fiction 


jolly  chuckling  of  laughter  that  his  snow- 
white  locks  shook  upon  his  head. 

"But  stop  a  bit,"  he  added.  "This  horse  Is 
broken — tut,  tut, — a  hind  leg  nearly  off.  This 
won't  do!" 

He  had  the  toy  in  his  lap  in  a  moment,  mend- 
ing it.  It  was  wonderful  to  see,  for  all  his 
age,  how  deft  his  fingers  were. 

"Time,"  he  said,  and  it  was  amusing  to 
note  that  his  voice  had  assumed  almost  an 
authoritative  tone,  "reach  me  that  piece  of 
string.  That^s  right.  Here,  hold  your  finger 
across  the  knot.  There!  Now,  then,  a  bit  of 
bee's  wax.  What?  No  bee's  wax?  Tut,  tut, 
how  ill-supplied  your  houses  are  to-day.  How 
can  you  mend  toys,  sir,  without  bee's  wax? 
Still,  it  will  stand  up  now." 

I  tried  to  murmur  my  best  thanks. 

But  Father  Christmas  waved  my  gratitude 
aside. 

"Nonsense,"    he    said.      "That's    nothing. 

That's  my  life.     Perhaps  the  little  boy  would 

like   a  book  too.      I   have  them  here   in  the 

packet.     Here,  sir.  Jack  and  the  Bean  Stalky 

290 


Merry  Christmas 


a  most  profound  thing.  I  read  it  to  myself 
often  still.  How  damp  it  is!  Pray,  sir,  will 
you  let  me  dry  my  books  before  your  fire?" 

"Only  too  willingly,"  I  said.  "How  wet  and 
torn  they   are!" 

Father  Christmas  had  risen  from  his  chair 
and  was  fumbling  among  his  tattered  packages, 
taking  from  them  his  children's  books,  all  limp 
and  draggled  from  the  rain  and  wind. 

"All  wet  and  torn!"  he  murmured,  and  his 
voice  sank  again  into  sadness.  "I  have  carried 
them  these  three  years  past.  Look!  These 
were  for  little  children  in  Belgium  and  in 
Serbia.     Can  I  get  them  to  them,  think  you?" 

Time  gently  shook  his  head. 

"But  presently,  perhaps!"  said  Father 
Christmas,  "if  I  dry  and  mend  them.  Look, 
some  of  them  were  inscribed  already!  This 
one,  see  you,  was  written  With  father^ s  love/ 
Why  has  it  never  come  to  him?  Is  It  rain  or 
tears  upon  the  page?" 

He  stood  bowed  over  his  little  books,  his 
hands  trembling  as  he  turned  the  pages.  Then 
he  looked  up,  the  old  fear  upon  his  face  again. 
291 


Frenzied  Fiction 


"That  sound!"  he  said.  "Listen!  It  is 
guns — I  hear  them !" 

"No,  no,"  I  said,  "it  is  nothing.  Only  a 
car  passing  in  the  street  below." 

"Listen,"  he  said.  "Hear  that  again — 
voices  crying!" 

"No,  no,"  I  answered,  "not  voices,  only  the 
night  wind  among  the  trees." 

"My  children's  voices!"  he  exclaimed.  "I 
hear  them  everywhere — they  come  to  me  in 
every  wind — and  I  see  them  as  I  wander  in 
the  night  and  storm — my  children — torn  and 
dying  in  the  trenches — ^beaten  into  the  ground 
— I  hear  them  crying  from  the  hospitals — each 
one  to  me,  still  as  I  knew  him  once,  a  little 
child.  Time,  Time,"  he  cried,  reaching  out 
his  arms  in  appeal,  "give  me  back  my  chil- 
dren!" 

"They  do  not  die  in  vain,"  Time  murmured 
gently. 

But  Christmas  only  moaned  in  answer, 
"Give  me  back  my  children!" 

Then  he  sank  down  upon  his  pile  of  books 
and  toys,  his  head  buried  in  his  arms. 
292 


Merry  Christmas 


'Tou  see,"  said  Time,  "his  heart  is  breaking, 
and  will  you  not  help  him  if  you  can?" 

"Only  too  gladly,"  I  replied.  "But  what  is 
there  to  do?" 

"This,"  said  Father  Time,  "listen." 

He  stood  before  me  grave  and  solemn,  a 
shadowy  figure  but  half  seen  though  he  was 
close  beside  me.  The  fire-light  had  died 
down,  and  through  the  curtained  windows 
there  came  already  the  first  dim  brightening  of 
dawn. 

"The  world  that  once  you  knew,"  said 
Father  Time,  "seems  broken  and  destroyed 
about  you.  You  must  not  let  them  know — 
the  children.  The  cruelty  and  the  horror  and 
the  hate  that  racks  the  world  to-day — keep  it 
from  them.  Some  day  he  will  know — "  here 
Time  pointed  to  the  prostrate  form  of  Father 
Christmas — "that  his  children,  that  once  were, 
have  not  died  in  vain:  that  from  their  sacrifice 
shall  come  a  nobler,  better  world  for  all  to 
live  in,  a  world  where  countless  happy  children 
shall  hold  bright  their  memory  forever.  But 
for  the  children  of  To-day,  save  and  spare 
293 


Frenzied  Fiction 


them  all  you  can  from  the  evil  hate  and  horror 
of  the  war.  Later  they  will  know  and  under- 
stand. Not  yet.  Give  them  back  their  Merry 
Christmas  and  its  kind  thoughts,  and  its 
Christmas  charity,  till  later  on  there  shall  be 
with  it  again  Peace  upon  Earth,  Good  Will  to- 
wards Men." 

His  voice  ceased.  It  seemed  to  vanish,  as 
It  were,  in  the  sighing  of  the  wind. 

I  looked  up.  Father  Time  and  Christmas 
had  vanished  from  the  room.  The  fire  was 
low  and  the  day  was  breaking  visibly  outside. 

"Let  us  begin,'*  I  murmured.  *'I  will  mend 
this  broken  horse." 


=94       ^^, 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 


LOAN  DEPT. 


This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

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12  Oct'ibFC 


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WK/ 31 '66 -10  At* 


DEC  1 3  1984 


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<?ECCfi?0ECl31984j 


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CC8481sl0)476 


General  Library 

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